WINTER, 2013CONTENTS

Introduction 2Sr. Marianne Farina, CSC

Comparing Virtue: A Study in Christian and Islamic Ethics 5Sr. Marianne Farina, CSC

The Nature of Virtue and its Teachability in Plato, Aristotle, and Miskawayh 13

James Pepe

Awliya’ for Social Change: The Transformative Spiritualities of Al-Ghazali and Aquinas 30

Farah El-Sharif

The Virtuous Vision: The Transformative Vision of Virtue and The Means to Beatitude According to Imam al-Ghazali and St. Thomas Aquinas 46

James Whipple

Saint Thomas Aquinas and Imam Al-Ghazali on the Attainment of Happiness 60

R. Rania Shah

The Pedagogical Dimension of Interfaith Learning 79David B. Burrell, C.S.C.

Poetry: The Awakening 90Thomas P. Pickett

Contributors 92

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INTRODUCTION

In the fall of 2011, I created a course of study that compared theologicalethics of Christianity and Islam, particularly the virtue theories of religiousthinkers who re-interpreted the Greek tradition in ethics. The course wasoffered to students pursuing Master’s degree at the Dominican School ofPhilosophy and Theology and the Center for Islamic Studies at the GraduateTheological Union (GTU) in Berkeley, as well as doctoral students, also affili-ated with GTU and University of California. There were twenty-one students inthe course, ten Muslim students and eleven Christian students. The studentsengaged in general studies about Christianity and Islam and methods for doingcomparative theological studies, which included close textual reading, historicalstudy, and critical analysis of particular virtue theory and its praxis.From this course of study, several students continued to develop these top-

ics and used this course as a basis for their Master’s thesis and doctoral com-prehensive exams. In the course evaluations they commented that both thecourse’s content and methodology were important for their future research andteaching. With this insight, I proposed to Dr. Janie Harden Fritz, editor ofListening, that an issue of this publication could include student papers, myessay about the rationale and content for the course, and a reflection by a well-known scholar in the field of Christian-Islamic studies. She agreed and we nowpresent this issue to you.The introductory essay describes the syllabus and highlights the method-

ology and content explored in the course. I also offer conclusions based on theclass experiences of engaging the texts, discussions, and findings that emergedfrom comparing Christian and Muslim virtue theories. Student essays follow this introduction. James Pepe looks at one of the

classical questions in virtue theory. He asks, as Plato does in Meno, “Can virtuebe taught?” He then poses answers to this question using the writings of Plato,Aristotle, and Muslim philosopher Miskawayh. He compares their ideas andoffers a closing argument showing the strengths of each position.Rania Shah discusses the teleology of St. Thomas Aquinas and Imam Abu

Hamid al-Ghazali’s virtue theory. She focuses on each thinker’s interpretation

of the goal of happiness with God as the ultimate good, and the ways that eachvirtue theory proposes how believers can seek God and remember God. Similarly, James Whipple focuses on Aquinas’s and al-Ghazali’s teaching

about the vision of God as the ultimate happiness as the essence of humanflourishing. However, he claims that Christian and Muslims share a moral-spir-itual pathway as they seek to draw nearer to God, especially through the gifts oftheological and mystical virtue. Farah El-Sharif’s work further develops these themes by examining the

virtues of justice and charity, or love for God, in Aquinas’s and al-Ghazali’s writ-ings. She contends that their virtue theories reveal how a relationship with Godand desire for ultimate happiness with God empowers believers to courageousand just actions in society.David B. Burrell’s essay reviews the work of the students and offers a per-

spective about the ways these essays contribute towards healing and positiverelations between Muslims and Christians. He notes that Nostra Aetate[Vatican II’s Pastoral document on Relations with non-Christian Traditions]provided an opening for such studies. The “…changes in attitude catalyzed byincreased commingling of cultures, will [continue to] bring people of faith intoalliances which can foster mutual illumination and unveil other dimensions ofthese faith-traditions.”It is with this hope that we offer these essays as examples for further study

and conversation. We believe they illustrate how listening and learning acrossreligious borders provides critical resources for the academy and society. Theypoint to that fact that a deeper understanding of the teachings and practices ofthe world’s religions can foster good scholarship and good relations amongbelievers.

Sr. Marianne Farina, CSCGuest Editor

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COMPARING VIRTUE: A STUDY IN CHRISTIAN AND ISLAMIC ETHICS

Marianne Farina, CSC

INTRODUCTION

In the fall semester of 2011 I developed a course to explore the virtue the-ories of Christianity and Islam for the Dominican School of Philosophy andTheology at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, CA. The idea forthis course emerged from my studies in Islamic and Christian ethics and per-sonal encounters with Christians and Muslims in the academy and faith com-munities here in the United Stated and in Asia. Material for the course focusedon classical texts from the formative period of Muslim-Christian writings (900-1300 C.E.), and I adopted the comparative theological model, especially thosedeveloped by theologians such as James Fredricks and Frank Clooney, for thestudy. History teaches us what to study; comparative theology teaches us howto study.

Twenty-one students enrolled in the course; eleven were Christian and tenwere Muslim. In the course evaluations, students noted the various ways thecourse helped them to explore Islamic and Christian teachings and to discoverthe differences, as well as similarities, in their virtue theories. This journal isdedicated to sharing some of these insights. This article will focus on the coursedesign, note additional outcomes achieved by the participants, and suggest waysto improve such course offerings. This discussion will be divided into threeparts. The first will present an overview of course goals and methodology. Thesecond part will look specifically at the content and organization of the varioustopics explored. The third part will share our discoveries that emerged when wecompared Muslim and Christian ethics and suggest areas for future studies incomparative theology.

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PART ONE: OVERVIEW

The goals of the course were straightforward and imbedded in the coursedescription itself:

From a comparative theological approach, this seminar focuses on the teach-ings of Saint Thomas Aquinas and Abu Hamid al-Ghazali. The courseexplores the philosophical and theological foundations of virtue theory inIslam and Christianity, the relationship between theological virtues and thecardinal moral virtues, and the implication of these teachings for academicstudy and development in faith communities today.

An additional learning outcome for the course was that students would devel-op oral and written competencies for doing comparative theological study.Using comparative methodologies, especially those developed by C.S. Song,James Fredericks and Frank Clooney, I introduced ethical writings of these twotraditions in ways that respected historical and theological particularities ofChristian and Muslim faiths. Using this process we read texts without privileg-ing one perspective over another, nor developing a generic or grand interpre-tation about virtue theory. The study of these texts proceeded “slowly and ten-tatively”1 in order to get a firm grasp of the ethical import, which includedaddressing the internal theological debates of the tradition and identifying foun-dations for the moral teaching. General and small group discussions enhancedthe reading and discussion of these texts because we highlighted both differ-ences and common ideas of these texts. In addition, I invited Shaykh HamzaYusuf, co-founder of Zaytuna College, Berkeley, California,2 to offer lectureson Islam and the writings of Abu Hamid al-Ghazali. Shaykh Hamza’s presen-tations helped students to understand these writings with greater depth whilealso inviting them to bring their own traditions into dialogue with al-Ghazali’sthought. These efforts opened up possibilities for, as Frank Clooney states,“back and forth learning,” which fosters an intelligent faithfulness to a traditionwhile also bringing new insights to texts.3 We then ventured into comparing var-ious aspects of these writings, knowing that the composition of the class discus-sions could verify our insights. This participation supported each student’songoing research and writing for the class. The course method was dynamicand thoroughly theological, i.e., “[our] faith(s) seeking understanding.”4

PART TWO: CONTENT AND ORGANIZATION OF TOPIC

The course goals and methods provided the focus for course materials andthe organization of topics for the weekly three-hour seminar. The course con-tent included introductory studies of Christian and Islamic theology andAncient Greek philosophical writings. These texts were UnderstandingCatholicism, by Monkia Helwig, and The Vision of Islam, by Suchito Murata

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and William Chittick; Plato’s Meno; and Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics.Secondary resources supplemented the study of the Greek philosophical mate-rial. Building on this foundation were the writings of early Islamic and Christianthinkers. We read St. Augustine’s the Enchiridion of Faith and the second partof City of God. We also read Al-Farabi’s Tahsil al sa-ada, Ibn Sina’s, al-Ishratwat Tanbihat, and Miskawayh’s Tahdhib al-akhlaq. The second half of thecourse concentrated on the ethical writings of Abu Hamid al-Ghazali and SaintThomas Aquinas. I chose these two figures as the principal focus of the coursebecause of the nature and scope of their work. Al-Ghazali and Aquinas weresynthesizers of the philosophical and theological developments of their tradi-tion, and their writings became resources for ongoing research and study in the-ological ethics. We studied Aquinas’s Summa theologiae and al-Ghazali’s Ihyaulum al-din. These major works contain explicit and elaborate teachings aboutvirtue, more than one semester could possibly cover. Therefore, I selected sec-tions that put forward critical elements and foundational teachings in Aquinas’sand al-Ghazali’s ethical theory.

For example, Aquinas’s discussion on virtue occurs between two essentialstudies: God as creator in the first part and Jesus Christ as the ultimate way tobeatitude, perfect happiness with God, in part three. Exploring questions fromthese sections, as well those from his treatment on human acts, law, and grace,gave us a fuller understanding of Aquinas’s teaching about virtue.

Similarly, al-Ghazali’s treatment of virtue requires a study of the first twoparts of the Ihya-ulum al-din. In these sections, the first two books discuss theimportance of learning and the inner meanings of beliefs, worship practice, andethical duties. The last book (Book XX) describes the life of ProphetMuhammad as a model of perfection that Muslims should emulate. Al-Ghazali’s virtue theory is rooted in these particular studies, and it is from thisfoundation that he exhorts Muslims to deepen their commitment to contem-plation and action. In addition to exploring these readings, we looked at sever-al commentaries, which served as a guide as we interpreted the writings.Participants of the class varied in their knowledge of Arabic, Greek, and Latin;these secondary resources proved helpful when participants were unable toread texts in their original language.

As can be seen with the assigned readings, the course materials followed aparticular trajectory. Central to this process was the fact that it mirrored the expe-rience of early Muslim and Christian thinkers who, when they came into contactwith Greek ideas, found ways to incorporate them into their understanding ofmoral and theological virtue. Topics for the course traced the intersections ofAncient Greek ideas with the subsequent development of Islamic and Christianstudies of virtue. However, before we could embark on this investigation, weneeded to engage in discussions about the core beliefs of Christianity and Islam.

The course study began with an overview of Christian and Islamic teach-ings using the texts of Hellwig, Murata, and Chittick. These materials described

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the theological foundations of these traditions. Hellwig’s division of her text,“Human life before God”; “Jesus, Compassion of God’; and “Spirit in theChurch,” provided an essential Trinitarian contemplation to our understandingof Christianity. Similarly, Murata and Chittick organized their study on Islamaccording to the Hadith of Jibrel, which describes the three important aspectsof Islam, Iman, and Ihsan of authentic Muslim faith and practice.5 With thesepresentations, we then discussed each tradition’s understanding of three coreareas of belief: God, creation, and Divine Providence; human nature, sin, andgrace; relationship with God and the search for happiness.

We conducted general class discussions on these topics and organizedsmall group studies to address specific questions about the material. Thesestudies were led by students and findings were reported back to the larger grouptowards the end of each session.

Following these studies, we then explored Ancient Greek writings onvirtue. The works of Plato and Aristotle helped us consider descriptions ofhuman happiness, definitions of virtue, categories of virtue, and views about theteaching of virtue. Recalling that Greek philosophical texts were translated andread by Christian, Jewish, and Muslim thinkers in the early periods of theolog-ical explorations, these texts were critical to our study of Christian and Muslimethics. We read Plato’s Meno and followed this examination with Aristotle’sNicomachean Ethics. In our study of these writings we also looked at their con-text. It was important for us to discover the period and the concerns of Plato’sand Aristotle’s time in order to gain a clear understanding of these writings.

Plato’s work debated in issues concerning the definition of virtue andwhether virtue can be taught. Although, in the dialogue, Plato’s discussion doesnot come to a full answer, the questions he proposes throughout Socrates’s dis-course guided our study about virtue throughout the semester. As we lookedfurther into other works, we presented Socrates’s questions in ways that helpedus discover how scholars of both traditions defined virtue and made claimsabout its formation. In other words, Plato’s dialogue never concluded, muchlike his own work! Aristotle’s study provided an essential resource for thedevelopment of a teleological focus about human flourishing, something Islamand Christianity share. His study on eudamonia, along with the description ofvirtue, categories of virtue, and friendship, was a primary resource for Christianand Muslim thinkers, some of whom quoted him directly.

This foundation helped us to explore theological studies that were some ofthe earliest attempts to incorporate Greek thought. These were the writings ofSaint Augustine, Al-Farabi, Ibn Sina, and Miskawaya. Again, we began by inves-tigating the social and political location of these works so that we might inter-pret them with greater precision.

Augustine’s handbook of faith focused on his central concern of “right lov-ing.” The illumined mind of the believer looks to turn away from sin and turntoward God. Augustine applies these convictions to understanding social and

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political obligations. Responding to the accusation that Christians were respon-sible for the downfall of Rome, Augustine’s City of God reminded us that fromthe time of the Greeks until modern times, virtue theory aims at describing jus-tice and its application in socio-political location. In this text, Augustine notesthat the true city is one in whose inhabitants recognize God’s providential willand follow it accordingly. Virtue for him is charity, or love for God given to usby God’s grace. All other human actions are expressions of this excellence.Moreover, Augustine’s treatment of virtue drew from Platonic writings thataddressed perfection of the soul. Charity perfects being, and with this principalvirtue, various virtues aim to correct vices.

In the investigation of 10th and 11th century Muslim thinkers, we encoun-tered another foundational piece in the development of virtue theory, i.e., theearliest integration of Aristotle’s treatments on ethics. Al-Farabi, Ibn Sina, andespecially Miskawayh drew from ethical, political, and what they suppose weretheological6 writings of Aristotle. They proposed how indispensible theoreticalknowledge was to a believer’s moral training. Al-Farabi wrote on how both werenecessary for the development of the city-state and that the statesman should becapable of theoretical and practical knowledge. Ibn Sina included in his writingswisdom drawn from his medical expertise and well as his mystical insights.Miskawayh drew up detailed study for training someone in virtue and empha-sized the importance of friendship in cultivating good character.

The course concluded with a six-week study of virtue in Thomas Aquinasand al-Ghazali. As noted above, this examination incorporated various sup-portive sections within the two major works we selected for the course. Aquinasand al-Ghazali were innovative thinkers. The resources they drew from andmethods of instruction they promoted illustrated how faith and reason areessential fonts of learning for ongoing intellectual, moral, and spiritual forma-tion. Various fields of knowledge contribute to a deepening of religious con-viction and moral action. Al-Ghazali and Aquinas describe how various typesof virtues perfect human capabilities both natural and supernatural. However,they differ in their emphasis on the active aspect of the virtues. Al-Ghazalitaught how certain virtues correct vice, i.e. corrupt behaviors shaping one’scharacter, whereas Aquinas’s study focuses on the capacity to act virtuously, andvice is activity directly opposed to the esteemed action.

Even with these distinctions, we were able to discuss some common aspectsof their virtue theory. The examinations were helpful because they served as asynthesis for the course itself. For example, central to both virtue theories is thebelief that moral discipline requires growth in one’s desire for God and open-ness to God’s gift of Divine Assistance. Aquinas’s virtue theory describes how avariety of excellences from the natural and common to the most noble and glo-rious deepen believers’ friendship with God as they strive toward perfect hap-piness with God. Al-Ghazali’s moral teaching identifies provisions believersneed to cultivate in order to draw nearer to God, the real happiness. These pro-

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visions, or virtues, take the form of righteous deeds and actions and lead themto deeply spiritual excellences through which they experience God’s intimacy.Such excellences help believers travel the straight path to greater intimacy withGod. In both thinkers, this growth in intimacy with God prepares them for areadiness to act justly in the community. For Muslims, the prophet Muhammadis the exemplar, especially interpreted by the “rightly guided” leaders of Islam’sfirst century. For Christians, they follow the way of Christ and the teachings ofthe early Christian community and its leaders. These studies incorporated ele-ments of earlier works in theology and philosophy, e.g., Christian and Muslimfaith and practice, teleological moral theory, pedagogies concerned with the cul-tivation of acquired virtue and reception of infused virtue.

Throughout the course, our use of the comparative theology methodhelped us to read accurately, compare moderately, and most importantly, tothink deeply about our own traditions in light of these works. We discoveredkey insights about Christian and Islamic teachings, and the methodology fos-tered a robust theological study across these two traditions—“faith seekingunderstanding.” For as Frank Clooney says: “If it is theology, deep learningacross religious borders, it will always be a journey in faith. It will be from, for,and about God, whose grace keeps making room for all of us, as we find ourway faithfully in a world of religious diversity.”7

PART THREE: DISCOVERY

Some of the fruits of our study are published in this journal with essays bystudents of the fall 2011 class. The 2011 course syllabus is also available on theDominican School of Philosophy and Theology website8 and might be aresource for those seeking to design similar studies. Although there were manynew insights, I share two that I think are especially helpful for future work incomparative ethics.

First, this study was an exercise in dialectics; we moved beyond simplydescribing moral teachings and engaged in innovative discourses about moralformation in general and virtue in particular. As noted above, debates about therole of philosophy and science in theological explorations and pastoral practicehas had a long history in Christianity and Islam, and our study provided anopportunity for us to draw from these histories and develop our own exchange.As a result, various elements from both disciplines were included our system-atic study of virtue. Moreover, as we concentrated on the work of Aquinas andal-Ghazali, we came to discover how these debates themselves contributed toteachings about intellectual and moral virtue and the cultivation of both for themoral life.

Search for truth, they believed, supports a believer’s faith. Although bothmaintained a hierarchical understanding of truth, they did realize that various

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fields of knowledge can contribute to a deepening of religious conviction andmoral action. Our class discussions helped us to realize that this is a goal sharedby Muslims and Christians today, just as in earlier times moral theories drewfrom learning processes that promoted studiousness and intellectual humility.One student commented that these studies were “… stimulating, enriching, andextremely beneficial for my academic pursuits and line of work. I have foundthat other traditions and religions are skillfully navigated with a nuance thateven co-religionists often fall short of…” When learning is attentive, intelligent,and judicious, there is a dynamic in the debate that fosters a genuine coopera-tion in searching for truth and promoting good. The comparative theologymethod in its insistence on precise reading across traditions and careful testingof ideas aligns well with classical forms of debate. The goal of both is learning.

Second, in the writings of Aquinas and al-Ghazali, the areas of commonal-ity, which included a theological anthropology, i.e., humans created in God’simage or by the breath of God and human fulfillment, or goal, as happinesswith God, opened up possibilities for other studies and exchange about themoral life. Attentiveness to the similarities and differences within these theo-logical foundations enable us to explore beliefs and practices of Muslims andCatholic-Christians with greater respect for the complexity of these traditions.One possible channel for further study would be sharing ideas for moral for-mation. Aquinas’s Summa theologiae was intended for those training to beDominican friars whose ministry was to preach the Gospel to the faithful.Aquinas describes virtue systematically, offering philosophical and theologicalarguments to illustrate how virtues are rooted in scripture and in the Churchteachings about law and grace. He also shows how acquired and infused virtues,spiritual gifts, and sacraments all contribute to development of moral character.Weaving each in an exposition, Aquinas’s study aims to help ministers toinstruct others in moral living, addressing their social commitments and per-sonal callings wherein they respond continually to God’s call to friendship.

Al-Ghazali’s Ihya ulum al-din offers a more instructional framework forbelievers themselves. He addresses them directly with recommendations thathelp them to live their faith more authentically. Each type of virtue and its expli-cation using the Qur’an, Hadith, and jurisprudential guidance, as well as teach-ings from great masters, contribute to the descriptions about the developmentof a beautiful character. The beautiful character manifests a believer’s “Islam,”i.e., the depth of faith and commitment to God and therein religious and socialobligations. Ultimately the life of the Prophet Muhammad is the model for theperfection of one’s character. The work of Al-Ghazali and Aquinas points tothe fact that Muslims and Christians, who believe God is the source, summit,and sustainer of all, learn to act knowingly, lovingly, and generously with all,because of their love for God and all others in God.

These two scholars are members of a distinguished group of religiousthinkers who have left us with a rich heritage of theological explorations.

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Comparative theological study provides us with a method to engage these teach-ings. In addition to this course, I have used similar methods in courses focusedon human rights and interreligious dialogue. Collaborative studies are in them-selves virtuous because they promote intellectual magnanimity within andamong religious traditions. This excellence is the capacity to read and debate,to explore, suggest, and reveal how in traversing theological borders, we cometo understand more deeply our own faith. These are the journeys that offer thebest hope for thinking about, and living among, religions of the world.

NOTES

1 James Fredericks, “A Universal Religious Experience?” Horizons 22, no. 1 (1995): 85. For a more detailedanalysis of this method see James Fredericks, Faith among Faiths (New York: Orbis, 1999). 2 Shaykh Hamza Yusuf is one of the most prominent Muslim leaders and speakers in US and abroad. For afuller biography see http://www.zaytuna.org.3 Frank X. Clooney, S.J., Comparative Theology: Deep Learning Across Religious Borders (West Sussex,United Kingdom: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), 11.4 This phrase is attributed to St. Anselm of Cantebury. It emerges from the prayer that introduces his majorwork, the Proslogion (1077-1078). I do not seek to understand that I may believe, but I believe in order tounderstand. For this also I believe, –that unless I believed, I should not understand.5 Hadith of Jibreel is a story related from the Prophet Muhammad’s life and explains the essence of the reli-gion (din). See Murata and Chittick, Vision of Islam (St. Paul, MN: Paragon House, 1998), xxv–xxviii.6 Muslim thinkers had access to a text called Theologia Aristotelis. This text was not written by Aristotle, butwas more likely the composition “Elements of Theology” by Proclus. See Majid Fakhry, A History of IslamicPhilosophy (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004), 22–23. Fakhry notes, “The scholastic authors of thethirteenth century, such as St. Thomas and St. Albert the Great, studied and commented on this [same] workunder the rubric Liber de Causis (Arabic: F’il Khair al-Mahd).”7 Clooney, Comparative Theology, 165.8 See http://www.dspt.edu; syllabi are listed under the “academic” tab on the website.

THE NATURE OF VIRTUE AND ITS TEACHABILITY IN PLATO,ARISTOTLE, AND MISKAWAYH

James Pepe

The true nature of virtue, its teachability, and the life most proper to thehuman person is one of the oldest and most enduring topics of philosophicalinquiry. This article will look at Plato’s Meno, Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics,and Miskawayh’s The Refinement of Character in order to compare theirthoughts on the topic of the nature of virtue, its teachability, and the life mostproper to humans. As in any philosophical endeavor, the intended end of thisinquiry is to discover the truth of the question at hand. The benefit of doing aclose comparison between the thought of a number of authors, as this paperdoes, is that it is very helpful in the quest to discover that truth which we areseeking. These three authors have very different ideas about the life most prop-er to the human person, and those ideas about what that life is like must arisefrom their understandings of the kind of thing the human person is. Looking atthese authors’ ethical teachings in close comparison will, one hopes, make iteasier to see how each of them treats of the issues and where their unique treat-ments of those issues takes them philosophically—that is to say, where theseauthors diverge, converge, and conclude on the question at hand. This presen-tation will then, in turn, help us as readers when it comes time to ask ourselves:Which of these authors has the best conception of what the good life of a per-son is and does that conception arise from and out of their understanding ofthe kind of thing a human person is?

PLATO AND THE MENO

The discussion which takes place in Plato’s Meno begins with the charac-ter Meno asking Socrates, “Can virtue be taught? Or is it not teachable but theresult of practice, or is it neither of these, but men possess it by nature or in

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some other way?”1 By way of response to this question, Socrates tells Meno thatnot only does he not know whether virtue can be taught, but he doesn’t evenknow what virtue is, and, furthermore, that he’s never met anyone that doesknow what virtue is.2 Socrates, however, knowing Meno to be a student ofGorgias, asks Meno to tell him what he thinks virtue is, leaving Gorgias’ opin-ions out of it. Meno responds that it is a hard thing to answer, but makes anattempt at it:

A man’s virtue consists of being able to manage public affairs and in so doingbenefit his friends and harm his enemies and to be careful that no harmcomes to himself; if you want the virtue of a woman, it is not difficult todescribe: she must manage the home well, preserve its possessions, and besubmissive to her husband; the virtue of a child, whether male of female is dif-ferent again, and so is that of an elderly man, if you want that, or if you wantthat of a free man or a slave. And there are very many other virtues...”3

Socrates praises Meno for being able to tell him such a great number of virtues,but then immediately explains to Meno that what Meno has described is not thesort of answer Socrates is looking for. To help illustrate what exactly Socrates isasking of Meno, Socrates asks Meno that if someone were to ask him what thenature of bees was, and Meno were to answer that there are many differentkinds of bees, and that same person were to press him further asking him if hemeans that the bees differed in as much as they were bees, or rather if they dif-fered in some other regard like size, how he would answer. Meno tell Socratesthat he would answer that they do not differ from one another in so far as theyare bees, and that if he were asked further whether he could say that thing inwhich they are all the same and do not differ, he would be able to.

Socrates tells Meno that this is the kind of answer that he wants aboutvirtue. He wants Meno to tell him what is the “one and the same form whichmakes them virtues.”4 Meno still doesn’t quite grasp what Socrates is askinghim, so Socrates uses some other examples. He tells Meno that he is askingwhether Meno thinks that, only in the case of virtue, is there one for man andone for woman, or whether it is the same as, for example, health or strength.For, Socrates asks, is it not the case that a woman is healthy by that very samething which a man is healthy, namely health? Or, if a woman is strong, is shenot strong by that very same thing by which a man is strong, that is to say,strength? Meno agrees that there is not a separate health or strength by whichwomen or men are healthy, but only one which renders both women and menhealthy or strong.

With Meno having agreed to this, Socrates then asks him if he does notthink it is the same with virtue. Yet, even after having agreed with Socrates inthe cases of health and strength, Meno tells Socrates that he finds there to besome difference when it comes to virtue. When Meno offers this comment to

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Socrates, Socrates asks Meno if he did not say that the virtue of a man consist-ed in managing the city well and that the virtue of a woman was managing thehousehold well, and goes on to ask him if he thinks that either of these thingscould be accomplished without moderation and justice. Meno agrees with thispoint and with the conclusion that Socrates eventually draws from this discus-sion, viz., that even if to be good men and women consists in different actions,both men and women need the same things to be good, namely moderationand justice. Thus Socrates concludes, “So all human beings are good in thesame way, for they become good by acquiring the same qualities...And theywould not be good in the same way if they did not have the same virtue.”5

Having established that virtue is the same for all people, Socrates askMeno to tell him what Gorgias, and Meno along with him, says that virtue is.Meno replies, “What else but to be able to rule over people, if you are seekingone description to fit them all.”6 Socrates praises Meno for finally giving thekind of answer that he has been seeking and yet quickly proceeds to demon-strate to Meno how his definition cannot stand. Socrates begins by first askingMeno that when he says “to be able to rule over people” he surely means “tobe able to rule over people justly and not unjustly,” to which Meno agrees, say-ing, “I think so, Socrates, for justice is virtue.”7

Having said this, Socrates takes Meno to task, asking him whether hemeans that virtue is justice or whether justice is one of the virtues. Meno doesnot understand the distinction Socrates is trying to make. In hopes of gettingMeno to understand what he is talking about, Socrates embarks on a fairlylengthy digression involving color and shape. Eventually Socrates gets Meno tounderstand that, although ‘round” is a shape, one would not say that it is shape,for there are many other shapes which can be named, such as “square.” Thus,if someone were to ask what shape is, “round” would not be a sufficient answerbecause “round” is a shape and not shape itself. In the same way, if someonewere to ask what virtue is, answering “justice” or “courage” is not a sufficientanswer to the question, because justice and courage are examples of virtuesrather than virtue itself.8

Having now established these sorts of guidelines or bases from which theycan have a discussion, Socrates and Meno go on discussing various other defi-nitions of what virtue may be, but they inevitably find them all to be lacking.With Meno out of ideas, Socrates tells him that he still wants to investigate thequestion of what virtue is with him. Meno, however, poses a very good ques-tion to Socrates, asking him, “How do you aim to search for something you donot know at all? If you should meet with it, how will you know that this thingis the thing that you did not know?”9 What Meno is asking here has becomeknown as “Meno’s paradox.” To restate it in a larger sort of way, Meno is ask-ing how it is that we can ever come to any new knowledge. For, if we alreadyknow something, we don’t need to search for it, and, if we don’t know it, how

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can we search for it, for we certainly wouldn’t recognize it when we see it,because we don’t know what it is.

To answer this objection, Socrates launches into an extended and famousconversation with one of Meno’s slaves, in which he demonstrates that a per-son can come to know something new whilst having no previous knowledge ofthe subject whatsoever and, furthermore, without having someone simplyinstruct him on the topic. Socrates shows Meno that this is possible by “teach-ing” or to, perhaps, put it more precisely, causing the slave to recollect, theknowledge of how to double the area of a square, without simply instructinghim in how to do it, but by rather asking the slave questions. At the end of hisdemonstration Socrates concludes, saying, “So the man who does not know haswithin himself true opinions about the things he does not know...And is notfinding knowledge within oneself recollection?”10 Socrates explains this phe-nomenon to Meno, telling him that when we die our souls see and learn allthings, only to forget it all when the soul enters the body again.

After this long digression, Meno gets the dialogue back on track by re-ask-ing his original question of whether virtue can be taught. Socrates is hesitant topursue this question, for how is one to search for a property of something whenthat something is not even known? Socrates, however, allows himself to be per-suaded to investigate the question, saying that the only way to go forward whenin a situation like theirs is to investigate the question by means of a hypothesis.The hypothesis they begin working with is that virtue is a type of knowledge.

This hypothesis is chosen because both Socrates and Meno admit thatknowledge is the only type of thing which can be taught; therefore, if virtue is atype of knowledge, then it must be able to be taught. They then take up thequestion of whether virtue is knowledge or something else. Socrates and Menogo about trying to demonstrate that virtue is knowledge, but they soon come toa problem. Socrates asks Meno, “If not only virtue but anything whatever canbe taught, should there not be of necessity people who teach it and people wholearn it? I think so. Then again, if on the contrary there are no teachers or learn-ers of something, we would be right to assume that the subject cannot betaught?”11

Meno agrees to this point but asks Socrates if he truly thinks there are noteachers of virtue. Socrates says that there are men called sophists who claim tobe teachers of virtue. Anytus, a character who joins the dialogue at almost theexact moment before Socrates starts talking about the sophists, assures bothSocrates and Meno that these men called sophists are not teachers of virtue, butthat they instead cause ruin and corruption in their followers. Because Anytusclaims to have much experience with the sophists, Socrates takes him at hisword, but then turns the question on Anytus, asking him who he thinks are, ifany, the teachers of virtue.

Anytus, being a good Greek, answers that any Greek gentleman, of course,is a teacher of virtue, saying, “Any Athenian gentleman he may meet, if he is

The Nature of Virtue/17

willing to be persuaded, will make him a better man than the sophistswould...these men have learned from those who were gentlemen beforethem....”12 Socrates begins to examine Anytus’ claim by bringing up many wellknown Athenian gentlemen as examples of the types of men Anytus is talkingabout. Socrates then shows his interlocutors that although these were great andvirtuous men, they were, for some reason, unable to teach their sons to be vir-tuous like themselves.

At this point both Meno and Socrates are convinced that since there areno teachers of virtue, virtue must not be a teachable thing, and if not a teach-able thing, it must not be knowledge. It is at this point however, that Socratesmakes an important distinction in the types of things which people can know.He says that people don’t just either have knowledge or no knowledge aboutsomething, but that they can also have true opinion about something. Socratesgives the example of the man who knows his way to the city of Larissa, for hehas traveled the road many times, and the man who only has true knowledge ofthe way to Larissa, because he has been told the way by the man with knowl-edge of the way, but has not traveled it himself.13

Socrates goes on to further explain the kind of thing true opinion is. Helikens it to an untied work of Daedalus, statues which were said to be so lifelikethat if they were not tied down, they would walk away. True opinion is like oneof those lifelike works of Daedalus, because as long as true opinion remains tieddown, as it were, true opinion functions the same as knowledge, that is to say, itwill get you to Larissa, but, unlike true knowledge, true opinion has the ten-dency “walk away” out of the mind, like the unbound statue. It is only after thesetrue opinions have been “tied down” by giving an account of the reason why theopinion is true that it becomes tied down, that it becomes true knowledge.14

The rest of the dialogue is spent by Meno and Socrates recapitulating thediscussion and restating some of the more important ideas which the discussionproduced. And yet, none of the questions which the two mean set out toanswer seem to have been resolved, or if they were, suspiciously so (are we trulyto believe that Socrates is telling us that virtue is not knowledge?). As Socratesis known to do in these situations, at the end of the dialogue he makes anappeal to the gods, saying, “As regards knowledge, they are no different fromsoothsayers and prophets. They say many true things when inspired, but theyhave no knowledge of what they are saying...And so, Meno, is it right to calldivine these men who, without any understanding, are right in much that is ofimportance in what they say and do?...virtue appears to be present in those ofus who may possess it as a gift from the gods”.15

ARISTOTLE AND THE NICHOMACHEAN ETHICS

In Book II of his Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle takes up the question ofwhether virtue can be taught. Aristotle tells us right from the beginning of Book

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II that virtue is of two sorts, and that one of these sorts is the teachable type andone isn’t. The rest of the book is concerned with fleshing out his idea of what avirtue is, which will further shed light on why Aristotle thinks some virtue to beteachable and others not, and what exactly he means when he says “teachable.”

The very first sentence of Chapter 1 in Book II gives us a possible answerto what Socrates and Meno were so desperately searching for in the Meno.Aristotle writes, “Now since virtue is of two sorts, one pertaining to thinking andthe other to character, excellence of thinking is for the most part in its comingto be and in its growth, a result of teaching, for which reason it has need of expe-rience and time, while excellence of character comes into being as a conse-quence of habit.”16 Aristotle has now put us in a similar position that we werein when reading the Meno. Aristotle has told us about some of the characteris-tics of what he thinks virtue is, but he has yet to give an account of what virtueactually is or, for that matter, any good reasons why we should take his asser-tion about the teachability of virtue seriously.

By way of beginning to support his claim, Aristotle first demonstrates thatnone of the virtues of character are in us by nature. He says, “For example, astone, which by nature falls downward, could not be habituated to fall upward,not even if one were to train it by throwing it upward ten thousand times, norcould fire be habituated to move downward, nor could any of the things thathappen by nature in one way be habituated to happen in another way.”17 Theargument Aristotle is making here is that things which happen by nature areunchangeable. Hence, no matter how many times you try to train a rock to fallupward by throwing it up, you will never be able to change its natural downwardmotion. What this has to do with character is that, because people can changeas to the virtue of their character, character virtues must not be in men by natureor otherwise those character virtues, like the rock, would be unchangeable.

Furthermore, Aristotle says,

With those things that come to belong to us by nature, we are provided withthe potencies for these beforehand, and we produce the being-at-work ofthem in return...But we do take on the virtues by first being at work in them,just as also in other things, we learn by doing, and people become, say, house-builders by building houses or harpists by playing the harp. So too, webecome just by doing things that are just, temperate by doing things that aretemperate, and courageous by doing things that are courageous.18

Aristotle is making a distinction here. Unlike things which are natural to us, likethe virtues, we first take them on by being-at-work in them. What this means isthat, with the virtues, we first must be-at-work in them, i.e., acting virtuously, inorder to acquire and learn how to be virtuous properly. This is not the case withsomething that comes naturally to us, like, for example, sight. One does notneed to practice seeing, for example, in order to be able to see things; one sim-

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ply opens one’s eyes and sees things. By contrast, with the virtue of temper-ance, for example, one does not simply act and therefore act temperately, in thesame way that one sees simply by opening one’s eyes, but, as will be shown, oneneeds to act in a certain way and from a certain disposition in order truly to acttemperately. Aristotle concludes, “Therefore the virtues come to be presentneither by nature nor contrary to nature, but in us who are of such a nature asto take them on, and to be brought to completion in them by means ofhabits.”19

Having established this point, Aristotle begins to construct what will even-tually be his complete definition of virtue itself. He begins this construction bylooking to the relationship between virtue and pleasure and pain. He does thisbecause he recognizes the fact that, because virtues are concerned with actionsand feelings, they must also be concerned with pleasure and pain because it isprecisely because of the pleasure or pain one receives from doing some actionwhich is, in most cases, the primary reason why some action is engaged in oravoided. Aristotle says,

Every active condition of the soul is in its nature related to and concerned withthe sorts of things by the action of which it naturally becomes worse or better,and it is by means of pleasures and pains that people become base, throughpursuing and avoiding them, either the ones one ought not, or when oneought not, or in a way one ought not, or in as many other ways as such dis-tinctions are articulated.20

What Aristotle is arguing here is that the pursuit of pleasures and the avoidanceof pains plays a huge part in coming to be virtuous. It is important, though, tounderstand that Aristotle is not advocating a hedonistic lifestyle as one wouldnormally understand it. The hedonist simply pursues what is most immediate-ly pleasurable and avoids anything that would give pain. What Aristotle isdescribing here, though, is that one must have the ability to discern what is trulypleasurable and good and what is truly painful and bad. For example, con-stantly eating sweets all the time will definitely taste good but it is, nonetheless,bad because of all the other bad consequences of only eating sweets. On theother hand, taking the bitter medicine from the doctor, or spending arduoushours exercising in the gym, although immediately painful, are nonethelessgoods because they render health (which is a good) in the body. Thus, saysAristotle, “virtue of this sort is an aptitude productive of the best actions thatconcern pleasures and pains, and that vice is the opposite.”21

Following this discussion, Aristotle raises the first impasse, i.e., an objec-tion someone might make to his argument thus far. The objection Aristotle rais-es is this: how can one say that it is necessary to become just or temperate byperforming just or temperate actions, for, if one is able to do just or temperateactions, one must already be a just or temperate person, just as if one does

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things which have to do with writing or music, one must already be a literate ormusical person.22

Aristotle begins to field this objection by arguing that simply because a per-son does something musical or grammatical does not mean that the person is amusical or literate person. In other words, a person can do something gram-matical or musical by chance, mistake, or by being advised by someone who isgrammatical or musical. In other words, simply because a person is able tospeak a phrase in a foreign language does not mean that he is proficient or“grammatical” in that language. Aristotle says that the case is the same with theperson who does a just or temperate act:

One will be literate, then, only when one produces something literate anddoes so in a literate way, that is in accordance with the art of writing withinoneself...But with the things that come about as a result of the virtues, justbecause they themselves are a certain way it is not the case that one does themjustly or temperately, but only if the one doing them also does them being ina certain way: if one does them first of all knowingly, and next, having chosenthem for their own sake, and third, being made in a stable condition and notable to be moved all the way out of it...Thus, while the actions are called justor temperate whenever they are the sorts of things that a just or temperate per-son would do, the one who does them is not just or temperate unless he alsodoes them in the way that just and temperate people do them.23

Aristotle is arguing that truly to act virtuously, one’s action must fulfill thesethree requirements. First, one must have knowingly done the action, not havedone it by mistake or by chance. Second, one must have chosen the action forits own sake. This means that the person has chosen to act justly or temperate-ly not in order to achieve some further end like money or honor, but becausethe action is just or temperate. Finally, the choice must be made from a stablecondition of the soul. What this means is that when someone can be said trulyto have done something out of the virtue of her character, she has done it fromsomething within her that she possesses that is stable within her. For example,we call the temperate person temperate not because he has done one temper-ate action in his life, or even if they do temperate things once in a while. Onewould truly be called temperate if, on every occasion in which a person’s tem-perance came into play, he chose to act from that firm foundation of temper-ance he has cultivated within his soul. Finally, Aristotle says further that onemust do these action in the way in which the just or temperate man would dothem.

Aristotle then goes on to investigate what virtue is. He says that becausethere are three types of things which come to be present in the soul, virtue mustbe one of these three things, viz., feelings, predispositions, or active conditions.Aristotle argues that virtues cannot be feelings or predispositions, because noone is praised or blamed for how she feels or if she is predisposed to feel or do

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something in some way. Thus, because virtues can be neither feelings nor pre-dispositions, they must be active conditions within the soul.24

Aristotle then tells us what kind of active condition virtues are by finally lay-ing out his definition of virtue. He says,

Virtue is an active condition that makes one apt at choosing consisting in amean condition in relation to us, which is determined by a proportion and bythe means by which a person with practical judgment would determine it.And it is a mean condition between two vices, one resulting from excess andthe other from deficiency, and is also a mean in the sense that the vices of theone sort fall short and those of the other sort go beyond what is appropriateboth in feelings and in actions, while virtue both discovers and chooses themean. Hence, in terms of its thing hood and the articulation that spells outwhat it is for it to be, virtue is a mean condition, but in terms of what is bestand what is done well, it is an extreme.25

Here we have the most complete definition of virtue Aristotle presents in hisEthics. He incorporates into it everything which has been talked about as beingaspects of what virtues are and here brings them together into a cohesive unity.

Now that this definition has been given, it should become more clear as towhat Aristotle means when he says that some virtues can be taught and somecannot. The character virtues, given the definition above, would be impossibleto teach. It would be impossible to teach them, because the virtuous mean whichis trying to be achieved would not only probably but indeed most likely be dif-ferent for any given situation, but, furthermore, it would be different for everyperson given each person’s particular present condition in life and moral devel-opment. In other words, even if two people were put into exactly the same situ-ations with exactly the same circumstances, the virtuous action for one personwould probably not be the same for the other person. Therefore, it would beimpossible for someone to teach the sort of virtue that Aristotle is talking about.

Even in the case of the intellectual virtues, which he says are teachable, headmits “ha[ve] need of experience and time.”26 The intellectual virtues are, inthat sense, much like a skill which one acquires. For one can be shown how toplay a tune or how to solve a kind of problem, but it is only through making useof that teaching that it can be said that one now knows how to play that tune orhow to solve those types of problems. Thus, for Aristotle, the notion of being-at-work is central to his idea of how one attains virtue, so much so that, even inthe case of those virtues which he says are teachable, he recognizes that theinstruction needs to be coupled with some kind of experience in order to saythat someone truly possesses a certain virtue. For these reasons, Aristotle con-cludes Book II by saying,

It is work to be of serious moral stature, since in each kind of thing it is workto get hold of the mean; for instance, to take the center of a circle belongs notto everyone but to one who knows something, and so too, while getting angry,

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or giving and spending money, belong to everyone and are easy, to whom andhow much and when and for what purpose and in what way to do these thingsare no longer in everyone’s power, nor are they easy; for this reason what isdone well is rare and praiseworthy and beautiful.27

MISKAWAYH AND THE REFINEMENT OF CHARACTER

Ahmad ibn Muhammad Miskawayh dedicates the entire SecondDiscourse of his Refinement of Character to the topics of virtue, character, andthe role education plays in the cultivation of virtue and character. Miskawayhbegins by defining what he means by character. He says,

Character is a state of the soul which causes it to perform its actions withoutthought or deliberation. This state is of two kinds. One is natural and origi-nates in the temperament, as in the man whom the least thing moves to angeror who is aroused for the least cause, or in the man who is cowardly in the faceof the most trifling incident—who is afraid of a noise which strikes his ear or isterrified by news which he hears—or who bursts into excessive laughter at theleast thing that pleases him, or is saddened and distressed because of the leasttrouble that befalls him. The other kind is that which is acquired by habit andself training. It may have its beginnings in deliberation and thought, but thenit becomes, by gradual and continued practice [, an aptitude and a trait of char-acter].28

Thus, we see that Miskawayh contends that a person’s character consists in thestate of his soul, and that this state is of two kinds, one of which is natural andthe other, acquired by habit and self training.

Miskawayh then goes on to establish whether character is the type of thingwhich can be changed, for, he says, that there have been many different opin-ions on the topic. Miskawayh says that he favors the position which holds that“no part of character is natural to man, nor is it non-natural. For we are dis-posed to it, but it also changes as a result of discipline and admonition eitherrapidly or slowly.”29 Miskawayh goes on to demonstrate this position by prov-ing it via a syllogism. He restates the position thus: “Every character is subjectto change. Nothing which is subject to change is natural. Therefore, no singlecharacter is natural.”30 Miskawayh verifies the first premise by appealing toobservation and experience, from the usefulness and effectiveness of disciplineand, he says, from “the right laws by which God (mighty and exalted is He!)guides His creatures.”31 The verification of the second premise, Miskawayhsays, is equally clear, for no one tries to change anything that is natural. For,much like we saw in Aristotle, Miskawayh says that no one ever seeks to trainfire to move down or rocks to move up. Thus, he says, with the two premisesbeing sound, and by carrying out the syllogism in the proper way, the conclu-sion, viz., that no single character is natural, has been proven.

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Having thus demonstrated that it is in fact possible to change someone’scharacter, Miskawayh moves on to discuss what he calls the “art of charactertraining”32 and its superiority among the arts. Miskawayh argues that this artmust be the highest of all the arts, for

the art which is concerned with the betterment of man’s actions so that he mayperform them completely and perfectly in accordance with his substance, andwhich aims at raising him from the rank of the most debased, wherein hedeserves to be detested by God (mighty and exalted is He!) and to endurepainful suffering—it must follow that such an art is the noblest and the mosthonorable of all the arts...whoever is able by his art to raise the lowest of thesesubstances in rank to the highest is noble indeed, and so also is his art.33

Furthermore, Miskawayh argues that this art of character refinement is aimedat people’s being able to attain their perfection. Miskawayh argues that becausehumans are a composite of matter and soul, their perfection cannot simply liein the perfection of their material aspect. Because humans, however, are notonly a composite being but a special kind of composite being, having an oper-ation which is unique to them as substances, which they do not share with anyother existing thing, Miskawayh says, the art of character refinement is aimed atmaking a person the most capable of manifesting this distinctive activity and toadhere to it most strongly.

Miskawayh goes on to describe this perfection, breaking it up into twoparts, one that concerns cognition and the other that is practical. A person’s firstperfection, concerning his cognitive faculties, consists in “his attainment inknowledge to the level where his perception becomes correct, his insight true,and his deliberation sound, so that he does not err in a belief or doubt atruth.”34 The other perfection, which is achieved through the practical faculty,is the perfection of character. Miskawayh says that this perfection

begins with the setting in order of one’s faculties and the actions distinctive ofthem so that they do not combat one another but live in harmony within him,and so that this action takes place in accordance with his discerning faculty andare organized and arranged in the proper way. It ends with civic organization,in which actions and faculties are properly regulated among people in such away that they attain the same kind of harmony [as in the individual], and thepeople achieve a common happiness, like that which takes place in the indi-vidual person.35

Thus, we observe here an important point. Miskawayh sees the eventual end ofthe perfection of character as a political or social end, rather than a strictly per-sonal end.

Miskawayh maintains that one achieves this perfection through knowledge.He says, “Man attains his perfection and is able to perform his own distinctive

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activity when he understands all the existents. By this I mean that he knowstheir universals and their definitions which make up their essences...For, if youknow the universals of existents, you come to know their particulars in a certainway.”36 This knowledge is important to Miskawayh because when someone isable to understand all things in their essences, he can organize those things intheir proper ordering and bring them into harmony with one another.Miskawayh says,

If you attain this rank, you will become a world by yourself and you willdeserve to be called a microcosm. For then all the forms of all existents willhave been present in you and you will become, in a way identical with them.By your actions you will have arranged them in order in the measure of yourcapacity, and you will this become, with respect to them, a deputy of theLord...You will not err in them or deviate from His original and wise order,and you will then constitute a complete world...you will have come so near toGod that no veil should then separate you from Him...This is the highest rankand the extreme happiness...37

Having thus described the perfection of the human person, Miskawayh moveson to consider how one is to attain such perfection. In order to achieve one’sperfection, one must come to understand the bodily imperfections and toremove and complete those imperfections. One accomplishes this goal by dis-ciplining the body in order to gain control of its appetites. Miskawayh says,

In the manner of food...he should take of it only as much as is necessary forthe removal of his imperfection and should not seek the pleasure [of food] forits own sake but rather for the sake of the subsistence of life...in the mannerof clothing [he should seek only] as much as will protect him from harm ofheat and cold and hide his nakedness...in the matter of sexual intercourse, hispractice of it should go only as far as will preserve his kind and perpetuate hisimage: in other words, the begetting of offspring.38

In addition to these bodily practices, Miskawayh says that the intelligent personmust also seek virtue in his rational soul, by examining the imperfections thereand striving to remedy them to the extent that it is possible for him to do so.Miskawayh says,

The intelligent man should give this soul the food which suits it and remediesits imperfections, in the same way as he gives the other soul [the beastly] thefood which is suitable to it. The proper food of the rational soul is knowledge,the acquisition of ineligibles, the practice of veracity in one’s opinions, theacceptance of truth no matter where or with whom it may be, and the shun-ning of falsehoods and lying whatever it may be or whence it may come39

In order to help people attain these higher levels of being, Miskawayh envisionsan entire support structure to help people refine their character. He says that

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anyone who has attained these high ranks “has necessarily the obligation to edu-cate other people and to pour out to his fellow men the gifts which God (exalt-ed is He!) has bestowed upon him.”40Miskawayh devotes a large section of hisRefinement of Character to describing the way in which young boys, in partic-ular, should be brought up from a young age so that they grow up recognizingand loving people of good character and being disposed themselves to cultivatethose same things within themselves when they are older. Miskawayh puts theresponsibility of this type of training solely on the shoulders of the parents. It isup to them to train their children in the ways which Miskawayh describes, or tofind and pay someone who can do it in a better way than they would be able tothemselves.

Miskawayh concludes this Second Discourse of his Refinement ofCharacter by saying,

When he becomes a perfect man, and reaches the end of his realm, the lightof the highest realm will then shine upon him and he will become either acomplete philosopher, who receives inspiration in the philosophical attemptswhich he makes and heavenly support in his intellectual conceptions, or aprophet, confirmed [by God], who obtains divine revelation in accordancewith the various grades which lie with God (mighty and exalted is He!). He willthen become an intermediary between the higher world and the lower, as aresult of his conception of the condition of all existents and of the conditionto which he is promoted from the merely human one, and as a result of sight-ing the realms which we have described. Then also he will understand thewords of God (mighty and exalted is He!): ‘No soul knoweth what delight ofthe eyes is hidden in reserve for them.’ And he will realize the meaning of thesaying of the Apostle of God (may the prayer and peace of God be uponhim!), ‘There, there is what no eye has ever seen, nor an ear ever heard, noreven occurred to the heart of a man.’41

THE NATURE OF VIRTUE, ITS TEACHABILITY, AND THE LIFE MOST PROPER TO

THE HUMAN PERSON

Having now looked more closely at these three authors and their writings,let us now move on to see what can be said about how each of them character-izes virtue, and whether they think that virtue is a teachable thing. In the caseof Plato’s Meno, despite the dialogue more or less ending with Socrates andMeno agreeing that virtue is not a type of knowledge and it therefore cannot betaught, I do not think that this is what the dialogue wants us as readers to comeaway with.42 The conclusions they come to at the end of the argument are true,in so far as they are the conclusion required by the arguments which have beenput forth in the dialogue. Yet, let us not forget that mere paragraphs beforethese conclusions are made, a discussion of the interesting phenomenonreferred to as “true opinion” has taken place. If we look to the conversation that

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addresses this phenomenon, we find something which, for all intents and pur-poses, functions and is the same as knowledge, with the exception being thatone cannot seem to hold on to true opinion in the same way that one can holdon to knowledge.

The discussion that really puts the proverbial nail in the coffin as towhether virtue is knowledge and could therefore be taught is the discussion sur-rounding the Greek men who are universally agreed to as being men of virtue,yet who were unable to teach virtue to their sons, who, by all accounts turnedout to be not so great men. The question is never brought up as to how thesegood Greek men were able to do good things if, presumably, they had noknowledge of virtue, which is evident, because they were unable to teach virtueto their sons.

I think the obvious answer is, then, that they must have had true opinionsas to what virtue and the virtues are, which, as we know from the example aboutthe man and the directions on how to get to Larissa, allowed them to act as ifthey had actual knowledge of virtue and the virtues. It would only become evi-dent that these good men were only in possession of true opinion as to virtuewhen they tried to teach it to their sons and failed, since, as is said many timesin the dialogue, the only thing which is teachable and which is learnable isknowledge and not true opinion. What the dialogue is telling us and what weshould take away from it is that it is extremely rare to have actual knowledgeabout anything, including virtue, and that the vast majority of people are think-ing and acting from the basis of what would most properly be called true opin-ion. Therefore, I do not think that Socrates is pandering or looking for an easyway out when, at the end of the dialogue, instead of some further argument, hegives us a “reasonable account” of the evidence when he says that those peoplewho do have true knowledge of virtue must possess it as a gift from the gods.

Aristotle, on the other hand, thinks he knows exactly what virtue is and thatit can, in some sense, be taught. Aristotle gives us what Meno could not whenhe lays out a comprehensive definition of what he thinks virtue to be. He, likeMiskawayh, thinks that the youth can be educated in order to, in some sense,them to the love of and desire for virtue.43 Unlike Plato, however, who, at thevery least entertained the possibility that virtue could be knowledge, Aristotlethinks that virtue is a sort of predisposition or, as Aristotle puts it, a secondnature, which enables us to act in accordance with virtue. Aristotle thinks thatthose virtues which are intellectual can be taught, although that teaching needsto be supplemented by time and experience, and that the character virtues,because of the type of things that they are, would be impossible to teach.

And yet, Miskawayh, with all his similarities to Aristotle, thinks that goodcharacter is utterly teachable because, unlike Aristotle, he thinks that the devel-opment of good character is an art. This is a very important point to recognize,even though Miskawayh himself does not place much emphasis on this idea.Because character training is an art like any other, it can be taught to anyone

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willing to learn it. Although I think Aristotle, and possibly Plato as well, wouldhave more than a few problems with calling the development of character orvirtue an art, calling it an art fits in very well with Miskawayh’s view of the com-munity as a sort of network of people who not only want to but are obligated tohelp their fellow man improve his character.

As far as being able to say something about these authors all together, I findan interesting trend in the development of their thought. The trend I find is thatthe more teachable the author supposes virtue to be, the more that author alsothinks that, by participating in the human person’s true end or telos, the morehuman beings transcend their humanity.

If we look to Plato and what takes place in the Meno we get the idea thatvirtue isn’t very teachable, or, at the very least, there are extremely few peoplearound to teach it. Then, at the end of the dialogue, we have Socrates sayingthat the person who truly knows what virtue is, and can therefore live lifeaccording to the good, must have that knowledge as a gift from the gods.44 InAristotle, at the end of his Ethics, we see him wrestling with the question ofwhether living the contemplative life, which is the life of happiness in accor-dance with the virtues, can be the life most proper to the human person,because when we live the life of contemplation, we are only making use of orliving in “the most divine of the things in us.”45 Finally, we have Miskawayh,who has developed the most robust philosophy in support of the teachability ofvirtue of the three philosophers, and we see that, for him, when we are livingthe life most proper to the human person and have cultivated our character toits highest degree, we become something truly transcendent, as was seen inmany of his quotes above.

I think this notion of transcendence or godliness when one is living thetruly good life comes from the notion of order. All three of these thinkersunderstood virtue to be some kind of proper ordering, whether that orderinglay in the body, the passions, the soul as a whole, merely the rational soul, orour dispositions towards action in the world. Now, certainly for Plato andAristotle, and most likely for Miskawayh as well, when they thought of orderthey probably thought first of the order of nature and of the cosmos, specificallythe uniform, circular motion of the heavenly bodies. They would probably alsohave been of the opinion that what created the order we see around us mustitself be the perfectly ordered thing. Plato would probably call this the Good,for Aristotle it would be the Prime Mover, and for Miskawayh it would beAllah. It seems clear that all three of these thinkers, then, would see a move-ment towards a greater ordering in oneself as a movement towards greaterdivinity. Therefore, it would, furthermore, make sense that, out of the three,Miskawayh would have the strongest notion of this transcendence or godliness,because he would have the most developed and robust theology, namely that ofIslam, accompanying and influencing his philosophical writings.

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NOTES

1 Plato, Meno, trans. G. M. A. Grube in Plato: Complete Works, ed. John M. Cooper (Indianapolis: HackettPublishing, 1997), 871 (70).2 Ibid., 871–872 (71b–c).3 Ibid., 872 (71e–72).4 Ibid., 873 (72d).5 Ibid., 873 (73c).6 Ibid., 873 (73d).7 Ibid., 874 (73d).8 Ibid., 874–876 (74–77).9 Ibid., 880 (80d).10 Ibid., 886 (85c–e).11 Ibid., 889 (98d–e).12 Ibid., 892 (92e–93).13 Ibid., 895 (97–97b).14 Ibid., 895 (98).15 Ibid., 897 (99c–100b).16 Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics, trans. Joe Sachs (Newburyport: Focus Publishing, 2002), 21 (1103a 10).17 Ibid., 22 (1103a 20).18 Ibid., 22 (1103a 30–1103b).19 Ibid., 22 (1103a 20).20 Ibid., 25 (1104b 20).21 Ibid.22 Ibid., 26 (1105a 20).23 Ibid., 26 (1105a 20–1105b 10).24 Ibid., 27-28 (1105b30-1106a 10).25 Ibid., 29 (1107a).26 Ibid., 21 (1103a 10).27 Ibid., 34-35 (1109a 20–30).28 Ahmad ibn Muhammad Miskawayh, The Refinement of Character, trans. Constantine K. Zurayk. (Chicago:Great Books of the Islamic World, Inc., 2002): 31.5.29 Ibid., 29 (32).30 Ibid., 31 (34).31 Ibid., 1 (43.5).32 Ibid., 33 (36.15).33 Ibid., 33-35 (37–38.10).34 Ibid., 36 (40).35 Ibid., 37 (40.10–15).36 Ibid., 37 (41.5-10).37 Ibid., 37 (41.10–20).38 Ibid., 44 (48.15–48).39 Ibid., 44-45 (49.10).40 Ibid., 49 (55).41 Ibid., 62-63 (70.15–71).42 I think I need to say something here about the way in which I approach reading Platonic dialogues. It seemsto me that one must allow the text to present itself to you as the reader and that the reader must be receptive towhat is being said in the text first and foremost. I find that reading Plato through the lens of the hermeneutic ofsuspicion is more or less systemic throughout the vast amount of secondary literature concerning, at least, thisdialogue. Both Abraham D. Stone in “On the Teaching of Virtue in Plato’s Meno and the Nature ofPhilosophical Authority” http://people.ucsc.edu/~abestone/papers/short_meno.pdf and Robert Sternfeldand Harold Zyskind in Plato’s ‘Meno’: A Philosophy of Man as Acquisitive (Carbondale: Southern IllinoisUniversity Press, 1978) do much violence to the text in hopes of being able to offer a neat compartmentaliza-tion of the arguments being made in the dialogue rather than listening to what is being said in the dialogue as acohesive whole. Furthermore, Roslyn Weiss in Virtue in the Cave (Oxford Oxfordshire: Oxford UniversityPress, 2001) seems to think that Socrates, and presumably Plato along with him, is trying to trick us at everyturn, and thus almost nothing which is being said in the dialogue can be taken at its first and most obvious read-ing. Needless to say, I do not find these types of reading of Plato to be helpful ones.

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43 There is some debate here as to the viability of proposing a “developmental conception” of children’s ethicalgrowth in Aristotle, especially in Gerard J. Hughes’s Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Aristotle on Ethics(New York: Routledge Publishing, 2001), 70, and Nancy Sherman in The Fabric of Character: Aristotle’sTheory of Virtue (Oxford: Clarendom, 1991), 160. I tend to agree with Sherman on this point in defendingthis kind of system of moral growth in children, but, however, do not necessarily agree with her characterizationof Aristotle’s thought of women as “perpetually children.”44 Plato, Meno, 897 (100b).45 Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 191 (1177a 10).

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AWLIYA’ FOR SOCIAL CHANGE: THE TRANSFORMATIVE SPIRITUALITIES OF AL-GHAZALI AND AQUINAS

Farah El-Sharif

INTRODUCTION

The great 7th century narrator of the Prophetic tradition Imam Tirmidhisaid that the awliya (friends of God) are the true vicegerents of God on earth;through them, rain continues to shower the earth from the heavens, andmankind receives the bounty of food, drink and Divine sustenance.1 Thedescriptions of the karamat (inspired virtues) of the Prophets and the friends ofGod hold secrets in their stature as a positive force in this world and the next—both seen and unseen—in the monotheistic traditions, which we would hardlybe able simply to research or read about in simple terms. In light of our post-modern, secularist sensibilities and the relegation of “God talk” to certain cir-cles of theological studies or metaphysics, the scholarly exploration of the sci-ence of spiritual transformation as a source of positive change in the world hasbeen confined primarily to the “new-age” approach to spirituality or liberationtheology studies or ignored altogether, leaving this topic as a serious academicinquiry virtually unexplored.

It is in this light that this essay approaches the transformative theology oftwo great figures—Imam al-Ghazali and Saint Thomas Aquinas—who continueto inspire millions of children of the Abrahamic tradition in their quest for acomprehensive, revivalist rendition of revealed religion. My task will not be tooutline what al-Ghazali and Aquinas saw as the perfect society as their AncientGreek predecessors have done (and countless others of their intellectual heirsacross the ages), but rather what a human being—as a Knower of his Lord andCreator—could offer to his surroundings and how such offerings might bemade. I will do so by exploring their respective statuses as spiritual masters and

the context in which they wrote their magnum opi: the Ihya’ and the SummaTheologiae. I will then proceed to explore their conceptions of God and theworld and how they translate to conventional approaches to “social justice,” andfinally I will investigate more closely the virtues of justice and charity forAquinas and their relation to the inner dimensions of worship for Imam al-Ghazali. I will show that it will be difficult to gain a definitive understanding ofthe spiritual methodology for social change, but that this is precisely the pur-pose of the teachings of our two masters in that their writings invite each read-er/seeker to take whatever has been learnt (and experienced) and write a par-ticular life story—a story of inner struggles, of yearning for union with theDivine, and of perfecting human purpose.

SPIRITUAL MASTERS

It is perhaps easy to categorize Imam Abu Hamid al-Ghazali as a spiritualmaster. His prolific scholarship places him as one of the foremost figures in theIslamic tradition for the revival of the Muslim heart: his work on riyadat al nafsappears to be more than just a theological declaration, but a deeply devotionalpathway for the Mi’raj of the soul to tasting the sweetness of Divine experience.Over and over, al-Ghazali invites the individual to invest his faculties—bothinner and outer—to strive for perfecting one’s intentions and character, with theaim of achieving the highest form of knowledge: knowing God. Less easy, how-ever, is the attempt at making a similarly straightforward characterization ofanother devout revivalist—and equally prolific and influential figure in theChristian tradition—Saint Thomas Aquinas.

There are many factors as to why the work of Aquinas has been charac-terized as theological or philosophical, and not often immediately labeled as“spiritual.” Such factors include the tendency to cherry-pick segments from theexpansive body of his literature as opposed to reading them in-depth and as awhole. Another factor is due to an insufficient knowledge of the living reality ofwho Aquinas actually was as a deeply devotional figure. In addition, Aquinas’heavily doctrinal work risks posing the assumption that it is devoid of spiritualdepth, but only a shallow misreading of his work, persona and purpose wouldlead to such a conclusion.2 In fact, his “theology is a spiritual theology” whichcharacterizes many a Thomist theologians’ ability to add a spiritual tone “toeven the most technical investigations.”3

Upon reading al-Ghazali and Aquinas, it is worth noting that the term“spiritual” as it is understood by the modern reader carries a distinct categoryof images and meaning (eg. someone claiming to be “spiritual but not reli-gious”), thereby making it susceptible to positioning against other—seeminglyopposing—constructed categories such as “doctrinal” or “theological.” That isnot to say that the term’s usage in the broadest sense does not carry philologi-cal weight, but it also risks ignoring the pre-modern sensibilities of the Islamic

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and Catholic tradition that offer a different understanding of the spiritual not asits own category, but rather as a conflation of the realm of the spiritual and therealm of the theological as part and parcel of one another. Knowing fully thatGod is the very anchor and guide to both al-Ghazali and Aquinas’ purpose andwritings, how can the living Divine reality they have devoted themselves to beanything but “spiritual.”, and anything but “theological”?

I will use the term spirituality in this paper to describe Thomas’ “teachingsand life as laden with values that may easily inspire people to behave in a spe-cial way, both as human beings and as Christians” by looking at the SummaTheologiae as a glimpse into his interior state.4 I will use the term in light of theCatholic understanding of a “spiritual life,” one that involves God, Christ, hismother Mary, and all of the saints in addition to one’s personal experience inmeditation and prayer.5 It is apparent that there is an important transformativeelement to the definitions of spirituality that behooves the individual to respondto a Divine experience or understanding. For example, when asked byDominican periodical Spirituality Today in 1980 about the meaning of spiritu-ality, Catholic moral theologian Hans Urs von Balthazar said:

That basic practical or existential attitude of man which is the consequenceand expression of the way in which he understands his religious—or more gen-erally, his ethically committed—existence, [and] the way in which he acts andreacts habitually throughout his life according to his objective and ultimateinsights and decisions.6

Similarly, the ‘Ihya’s content conjures up a methodology of “speculatively prac-tical” knowledge which Jacques Maritain outlines,7 or “fruitional experience,”as al-Ghazali himself describes it in the Deliverance,8 as a window to his innerstate as a means for understanding—and experiencing—the transformative effectreading his work will have on a seeker/reader. The science of Tasawwuf orTazkiyatul nafs is the most direct definition for achieving a “spiritual life”according to al-Ghazali, the path to “purifying the heart from everything otherthan God Most High.”9 It can even be said that Al-Ghazali is clear about hisconviction that a Muslim life devoid of the path of Tasawwuf is an incompleteone, one that possesses impurities and distractions so great in number that theyhinder the arrival at man’s true purpose in life: the knowledge of God andfriendship with Him. This approach is clear in his entire corpus from theDeliverance onwards in the way it provides for a “wake up call” replete with theusage of personal experience, analogy, sources from the Islamic tradition andphilosophical ethics, all of which pave the way for a Divine generosity that alonecan transform one to become wholly virtuous, or wholly in union with God.

Surely, the status of Aquinas as the Doctor Angelicus or DoctorCommunis and Imam Ghazali’s status as the Hujjatul Islam (the Proof ofIslam) or the Doctor of Hearts came about not only because they were mas-

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ters of thinking, but masters of living as well. Having grappled with periods ofdeep inner searching themselves and facing the unique and numerous chal-lenges of their day from the enflamed political status quo to religious stagnancycould well have—if not certainly—reflected the transformative nature of theirwritings. Let us, therefore, explore the biographical patterns and similarities inthe context and time in which these erudite wayfarers dwelled.

CONTEXT AND CONFLICT

During his time as a scholar at the prestigious Nizâmiyya Madrasa inBaghdad, Al-Ghazali was one of the most—if not the single most—intellectualfigures of his milieu, instructing his admiring students on the Islamic sciencesand impressing those around him with the breadth of his encyclopedic knowl-edge of philosophy, fiqh and aqidah. The attention he received from the grandvizer Nizamul Mulk was testament to how invaluable he was to the state. It isnot until Imam al-Ghazali begins to become unsettled by the constricting natureof his surroundings that he turns to the writings of the Sufis and begins to ques-tion his intentions, life’s purpose and direction:

Now the battle is engaged within himself between the desire to continue thehonored life led up to now and the interior call, impelling and implacable, toa more perfect life of abnegation and renouncement.10

Such a drastic change did not come without its fair share of conflict and strug-gle, vacillating between the comfort of his present life of fame and success andthe inner calling he faced for something deeper. Al-Ghazali narrates how Satanwould tempt him and mock his determination as but a passing phase, whichonly strengthened his resolve to find peace and end the noise of the hesitantinner monologue that haunted him, which he describes so aptly in theDeliverance, his great spiritual autobiography.

And so al-Ghazali resolves to leave and never return, which culminated toa 10-year long physical and spiritual Hijra immigration from Baghdad, thesource of his material and social stability, leaving behind the comforts of hishome, wealth, and the prestige surrounding him. In Damascus and later in theHijaz, al-Ghazali begins a life of solitude and spiritual seclusion, undergoing atrue metanoia (a change of heart and mind) and a deep yearning to purify hisheart of all else but God. Most notable is the condition that led him to write hismost famous work, the ‘Ihya Ulum al-Din. While he was in his solitude at theUmayyad Mosque in Damascus, the Crusaders captured Jerusalem, which ledmany of the Holy City’s dwellers to flee to nearby modern-day Syria. It isalleged that al-Ghazali heard heart-wrenching stories of the atrocities of the warsin Jerusalem, that he expected the entire population of Damascus to march tothe Holy Land in the aid of their brethren. Yet, much to al-Ghazali’s shock and

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surprise, the people of Damascus went about their daily lives the next day, as ifthey had not heard what he heard or felt what he felt from horrific tales of aMuslim city on fire a few hundred kilometers away. Al-Ghazali was sure thatsuch indifference was but a symptom of a matter in the Muslims’ hearts, andwhat the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) warned of as “love of thislife and hatred of death” (ethar al fani) It is for this reason that he resolved todig deep into the recesses of the maladies of the heart, in hopes that he mightrevive a collective return to faith and a true understanding of the world and ourpurpose during our limited time on earth.11

Much like his analogy for the inner (not physical) heart as a vessel in histreatise of the Purification, al-Ghazali proceeds to pour out the fruits of his ownexperiential learning and heightened state of Divine consciousness that emptiesout the heart of all worldly detachments, thereby allowing a flood of inspirationto inundate him, which eventually spills over as inspired ink on the parchmentsof his magnum opus, the Ihya’ Ulum al-Din—literally, “the Revival of theReligious Sciences.” In a narration by the Prophet Muhammad, it is foretoldthat a mujaddid (a renewing figure) will come to the Ummah every hundredyears to rekindle the Muslim community’s attachment to Sacred knowledgeand the Straight Path—that of following the teachings of the Qur’an and the liv-ing the Prophetic way.

Al-Ghazali’s eventual return to teaching could well have been his ownresolve at resisting turmoil. In the Deliverance, upon explaining the reason forhis return to Baghdad, al-Ghazali recalls the Qur’anic verse: “Do men thinkthey will be left to say “We believe” without being subject to tribulation?”12There hence appears to be an intimate connection between the claim to beliefin and devotion to God and the inevitability of being tested, as if as a means toprove one’s sincerity. To al-Ghazali, his tribulation was going back into theworld while remaining rooted in the solitary experience that had wholly trans-formed him. Knowledge, or discovering the praiseworthy sciences, is, accord-ing al-Ghazali, the ultimate decider in what would promote good and avoid evil.

The power of al-Ghazali’s knowledge as a mode of resistance is perhapsmost evident in his argumentative works against the philosophers, sophists, andta’limists. He tackled the influence of Greek culture, qualified with his knowl-edge of Greek philosophical works and armed with his resolve to absolve thepenetration neo-Platonist thought among the likes of al-Farabi and Ibn-Sina.Much can be said about al-Ghazali’s efforts towards rebutting what he saw asdangerous and misleading ideologies against the authentic Islamic tradition, butit suffices to note the substantiality of his restless efforts to serve as a figure outto distinguish between error and truth, guidance and loss of the way. Al-Ghazalimay not have been writing directly about political encroachments againstMuslim lands, but he was vocal and adamant about resisting “foreign” ideolo-gies in many of his works. Most of all, he recognized his difficult role as arevivalist in hopes that a true understanding of one’s purpose would ensur e a

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peaceful balance in the world, as God enjoins his believers—both Muslim andChristian—to pursue.

Almost a century after Ghazali’s death, Thomas of Aquino was born to alife marred with its own share of struggle and conflict. A long falling outbetween the Pope and the Emperor was underway at the time of his birth, andhis family—namely his father and brother—allied themselves with Fredrick II atthe time he decided to escape (virtually) to Paris to fulfill a calling within him tobecome a Dominican friar: “a contemplative way of life that issues in preachingand teaching, half monastic, half in the world.”13 The Dominicans were calledthe “Dogs of the Lord” as they were regarded as a radical group; Thomas’ defi-ance in joining them is perhaps a foreshadowing of the path his fiery spiritwould take and the astounding impact of his writings. As a young Dominican inNaples, Thomas had become exposed to the age-old conflict in WesternChristendom between the Catholics and the Cathars, whom he referred to asthe Manichees in his writings.

In 1245 Thomas went to Paris to complete his studies and later formallycompleted his training as a theologian in Cologne. Upon his appointment asconventual lector in Orvieto, Saint Thomas, he then ventured to write an expo-sition about “the truth of the Catholic faith” in his Summa Contra Gentiles. Itis possible that this document was motivated for its usage by missionaries inMuslim Spain, but it was surely foremost an “experiment to see how near theancient Mediterranean world’s search for wisdom might come to the brink ofbiblical revelation.”14 Saint Thomas’ passion for championing the Catholic faithas compatible with human reason carried a confident and prophetic tone as isobvious in the Summas, one befitting him who would be known as DoctorCommunis. Noting a need for such teachings—ones possessing the power toreform the image and organize the entire corpus of the Catholic church—Aquinas heeded the call for change. The purpose of his most famous work, theSumma Theologiae, as he noted in the beginning, is to set out Christian doc-trine in a neat and orderly manner, especially given the fact that

…. newcomers to this teaching are greatly hindered by various writings on thesubject, partly because of the swarm of pointless questions, articles and argu-ments, partly because essential information is given according to the require-ments of textual commentary or the occasions of academic debate, partlybecause repetitiousness has bred boredom and muddled their thinking.15

From the onset of Summa, it is apparent that the reader/seeker should look nofurther for a comprehensive study on the Catholic faith. In that sense, theSumma is much like the Ihya’ in that it is often described as the “the replace-ment for all books.”

Thomas’ second return to Paris to lecture put him in the center of a divi-sive power struggle at the university. The secular masters and the diocesan cler-

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gy opposed the arrival of the Franciscan and Dominican friars. The resistanceto the friars joining the faculty of theology lasted until Pope Alexander IV him-self interfered on their behalf. The conflict grew so violent that King Louis IXhad to send guards to the Dominican priory as protection against the vandalismof the theology faculty. This conflict, which is very similar in nature to thecharged milieu of the faculty in Baghdad during al-Ghazali’s time, is reflectedclearly in Thomas’ early publications in his defense of the vocation of friars.16

Moved further by the spreading of Aristotle’s teachings after years of resistancefrom church authorities, Thomas tackles more deeply the nature of man andGod, and the place of the theologian as a small but honorable path in thespread of Divine wisdom.17

For both al-Ghazali and Aquinas, it is safe to say that various conflicts borefruit in their lives, producing critical, purpose-driven works. Devoid of agitationabout what they saw as deficiency in understanding the needs of those teaching,preaching, and leading, as well as believers themselves, their entire corpuswould perhaps not have been as transformative and corrective in nature. Thephysical act of journeying away from the places and surroundings they saw ashaving a negative effect on their spirit al-Ghazali and Aquinas would make ahijra towards themselves, or rather, towards God. In a sign of protest againsttemptation and petty power struggles, it is perhaps through al-Ghazali’s own“spiritual crisis” and Thomas’ joining of the Dominican order that they couldarticulate their prolific and respective theories of virtue: the pursuit of happinessin the afterlife by an inward spiritual striving and a close look at the essences ofone’s actions, or understanding the tripartite path of Faith, Hope and Charity.

KNOWING GOD AND SOCIAL JUSTICE

The question of how it is we relate to God is the root of their exposition ofhow we become just creatures. The knowledge of God is, according to al-Ghazali and Aquinas, the ultimate and most important form of knowledgeevery man must seek. Understanding the “God-centric” method of al-Ghazaliand Aquinas is necessary to unlocking the power of their transformative theol-ogy. “My principal aim in life…. Is that all of my words and sentiments speak toGod,”18 says Aquinas. Part I of the Summa hence appears to be much morethan just a theological treatise on who God is, and is focused, rather, on howknowing God can transform us. Similarly, al-Ghazali begins the Ihya’ with theBook of Knowledge that serves to be a foundation for his work on the ultimateends for man: tasting (thawq) the knowledge of God, and becoming awliya(friends) of God:

I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’sbusiness. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned frommy Father I have made known to you.19

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The all-inclusive nature of Aquinas’ and al-Ghazali’s works perhaps signifiestheir roles as unique, inspired, prophetic mouthpieces for their faith systems,guided by much inner clarity, strength, and a bond with the All-Knowing, theAll Wise. One of Thomas’ adherents and admirers expresses this gift as fol-lows:

In the genuinely supernatural serenity which remains the mastery of this greatsaint, there opens up before the eye, as a source of ever fresh wonder, a kindof heavenly world of wisdom in which everything that seemed confused andhopeless on the murky earth clears away like clouds to give way to the radiantazure sky.20

If we look at the work of al-Ghazali, we can see this “cleansing” effect for thesoul as his guiding prescription throughout the Ihya’. To him, a “seeing” heartis the key to perfecting one’s worship of The Creator:

Do they not travel through the land, so that their hearts (and minds) may thuslearn wisdom and their ears may thus learn to hear? Truly it is not their eyesthat are blind, but their hearts which are in their breasts.21

Guided by the Qur’anic decree for success in this world and the hereafter–“only he (will prosper) that comes to Allah a sound heart”22 –al-Ghazali seesthe amazing potential in man to realize the reality of God. “The heart it iswhich, if a man knows it, he indeed knows himself, he indeed knows hisLord.”23 The Marvels of the Heart serves to outline what the heart is (the“divine, spiritual and subtle” qalb) to how it can be exercised and refined and,finally, how it can lead to man’s salvation.

Upon drafting of the “heart’s soldiers”—the instigating, the powerful—toobey the heart, and ridding “the soldiers of anger and irascibility,”24 man cancontrol his very being to obey—and know—his Lord. The wise is he who mas-ters “repelling the craftiness and cunning of the devil [..] through his piercinginsight and radiant clear light”25 … which emanates from the pure heart; onethat has conquered greed and anger, vices (injustices) towards oneself. Onlythrough striving to reach this state (the polished mirror) can one be “emptiedout” of all distractions and desires and become just, and the acquisition ofinspired knowledge (ilham) from God can descend.

This intimate reality is at the heart—quite literally—of Imam al-Ghazali’srecommendation for social good. He does not concern himself as much, there-fore, with recommendation for the collective good, because the basis for a justsociety is a just individual; if one is just towards oneself, one will be just towardsothers. Imam Ghazali’s theory of virtue is deeply introspective, as it requirescritical inward striving, culminating in a personal journey that every individualmust decide for himself or herself to embark upon. The Qur’anic injunction

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that “God does not change the condition of a people until they change what isin themselves”26 is precisely what al-Ghazali equips the seeker to do. As if intotal recognition of the limited ability of man to effect change, as opposed tothe All Knowing and Just Creator, the only means within the reach of man is toperfect one’s spirit. The rest is up to God.

Attaining good character, husn al khuluq, is, in a Prophetic tradition, thevery essence of Din: when asked, “What is Din?” the Prophet PBUH repliedthree times “good character” and in another tradition, “I have been sent (byGod) but to perfect good character.” The Prophets, possessing perfected char-acter and inspired knowledge directly from the Divine, are humanity’s exem-plars; in following them, one can find “remedies for the maladies of theheart.”27 For Saint Thomas, “it is in the man Christ that from the outset isfound a perfect spirituality.”28 Christ—for Aquinas—is the bestower of beatitude,and only through Allah—for al-Ghazali—causes infinite Mercy to descend uponman. Acquiring “godliness” is therefore not a within a person’s capacity orreach to pursue (acquired moral virtue), but is purely a gift from God that Hebestows upon whomever he pleases (infused virtues).29

In this vein of Divine transcendence, it is important to place into focus howthe pursuit of “social justice” as we understand it today is relevant to both al-Ghazali and Aquinas’ teachings and specifically in their understanding of Godand the world. If God had willed a perfect world, could He not have createdone? According to Aquinas:

Things are pre-existent in God according to the mode of the Word himself.That mode consists in being one, simple, immaterial, to be not only alive butLife itself, since the world is His being.30

If God is present in everything in the “most intimate way,”31 and if God is thesource of all Good, then this must mean that the actions or beings we perceiveto be “bad” are outside the power of God, surely a preposterous claim to bothal-Ghazali and Aquinas.

In reality, humanity was not “designed” to be perfect or wholly just.32

“Human law aims at leading men to virtue [and, by extension, communities] notin one sweep but gradually.”33 As a result, imperfection appears to be an inher-ent God-given asset to humanity and its purpose, not a hindrance. SaintAquinas taught ways of worship, but also conceived a meaning for life andmodes of behavior. Aquinas saw the distinctive characteristics of Christianmorality in the belief that the fullness of a spiritual life can be achieved withinthe structures of ordinary lives;34 to be ordinary is to be human, and to behuman is to embody the will of God for creation: that is, beatitude, or ma’arifa.

According to Thomas, the human does not arrive at his final end (God)except through a community (family, society, Church). He places just as muchemphasis on the earthly city as the eternal city and, unlike other thinkers, such

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as Augustine, he does not rank the two worlds but sees the earthly life as linkedwith human nature. Thomas’ political and social ethics are fundamentally tiedto his conception of personal morality as is his spirituality.35 Since man is “nei-ther a beast nor a god,” he must live in the company of his fellows.36 Thomashence sees the Christian life as one engaged in the lives of others, which he callsecclesia or populus, or a community of Christ’s faithful. Interestingly, thisunderstanding comes in stark contrast with the post-Reformation emphasis onindividualism which, from a Thomistic perspective, is contrary to the spirit of acommunal Christian morality. Friendship, or philia, is the root of the social andpolitical life for Thomas; it is “what is most necessary to live.”37 Recalling John15:15, it is therefore through grace with man that one will be given the gift ofgrace with God.

God’s guidance to man in this world can serve as a “bridge to humanity,”38

meaning that this world is not an end in itself. For Imam al-Ghazali, his under-standing of “the world” is rather different from Thomas’ love for the earthlycity. He warns that if one failed to understand the nature of the world and whyGod created it, then one would risk failing at gaining the better abode in theafterlife. In his Knowledge of the World and the Hereafter, al-Ghazalidescribes the world as “a stage or market-place passed by pilgrims on their wayto the next.”39 It is described with negative imagery as a place of trickery (e.g.the image of the world as a witch), for its allure is minor and temporary whilethe abode of God is infinite and supreme. In another stark parable of the dock-ing ship waiting for its travelers to return from the shore (the shore of thedunya), al-Ghazali warns of straying from the “wise path” of taking just enoughfrom this world and allowing one’s heart to be enamored by it.

That is not to say that this world is unimportant—indeed, in it lies the secretof creation, and only having crossed the bridge of life can man finally fully“know” (ma’arifa). Acting upon the knowledge of the world as transient, manhence must chart the water of life to the best of his ability (or rather, by meansof God’s unwavering Mercy), even though this knowledge that we perceive tohave reaped out of our own mental and spiritual capacities is, in actuality, but“rooted in man’s being as vitally permeated within the preconscious life of themind.”40 It appears, therefore, that God not only lives, but is life itself.41 Hence,there is a correlation between being a good man and a spiritual man becausethe spiritual man seeks the good for himself and others, fully attributing eachaction and intention to God. The spiritual man “judges all things, yet himself isjudged of no man.”42 The good of society therefore can only begin on the“micro” level, within man, a man who sees himself as the khalifah (vicegerent)of God on earth per the Muslim tradition or the image of God per the Christiantradition.

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JUSTICE, CHARITY, AND THE INNER DIMENSIONS OF WORSHIP

For al-Ghazali and Aquinas, the world is not seen in the lens of a mortalstruggle between good and bad, or black and white, but rather—as we haveseen—God permeates the world and every being. It is therefore difficult toquantify “justice” as a moral principle determining “right” conduct and com-partmentalize it into social and personal, as it is commonly discussed in mod-ern approaches to achieving “social justice.” To suggest that “social justice” isseparate from justice—sua sponte—could risk being understood as a form ofinjustice simply by virtue of its disassociation from the larger fold of “justice.”Contemporary Western philosophy regards justice as “the first virtue of socialinstitutions.”43 For Aquinas however, justice is a virtue between persons, “to beanalyzed in terms of those actions of individuals which either express justice orare contrary to it.”44 Justice is among the most exhaustive cardinal virtues out-lined in the Summa, arguably because of its complexity and the intricate man-ner in which Saint Thomas attempts to contextualize it within a framework ofsocial issues. However, he does not outline what just social institutions wouldlook like, placing more emphasis on the end goal of justice and how it relatesto other virtues.

Let us consider the relationship of justice to charity which will revealimportant findings with regards to Thomas’ conception of the basis for justiceand, consequently, a shared vision with Imam al-Ghazali’s inner dimensions ofworship. In line with Aquinas’ main treatment of the relationship of charity andacquired moral virtue (that being charity as the guiding end towards union withGod), it will appear that justice is “more similar to charity than any of the moralvirtues”45 as both justice and charity are virtues of will towards good and bothare expressed in exterior actions in relationships to others and God. The prin-ciples that connect Divine law to charity correspond to the principles of natur-al law that the Christian path adheres to (love of God and neighbor). Both thelaw and charity therefore function as structurally complementary virtues in thesense that they both work towards “transcending the good of the individual.”46

At the same time, Aquinas sees charity as its own virtue in its distinctly interiordimension of achieving union with God, thereby distinguishing justice in itsexterior direction as an inherently distinct virtue. However, performing just actsis motivated by the final aim of charity:

Just as love of God includes love of our neighbor, so too the service of Godincludes rendering to each one his due.47

In light of the interior motivation behind virtuous acts—that is, the love of God—it would appear that the root of all virtue is charity, “a friendship begun here inthis life by grace” and “perfected in the future life by glory.”48

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From his vision for justice, Thomas suggests a dual vision for the relation-ship between Church and society:

Faith in Christ is the principle and cause of justice, as is said in Romans 3:22:“the justice of God is obtained through faith in Christ.” This faith does nottherefore suppress the order founded on justice (ordo iustitiae). On the con-trary, it affirms it.49

It is not our point to dwell on what form Thomas envisioned in reference to the“order founded on justice,” but suffice it to say that he sees an intimate rela-tionship between faith and justice. In fact, Thomas regards spiritual power assuperior to temporal power, but eventually attributes both to God.50 Even hisconception of the best ruler is tied to virtue, as he must be surrounded by sub-ordinates that are “qualified by virtue.”51 He does not specify whether this rulermust be Christian, but his theology outlines that a Christian ruler, by virtue ofhis faith, would be more inclined to feel responsible for others.

To view justice in light of charity reveals similarities with the philosophy ofal-Ghazali’s practical teachings of the Inner Dimensions of Islamic Worship:the heightened quality of one’s instruction in the Islamic sciences (whose pur-suit requires action on the part of the believer) can perfect one’s worship (andheart in the process) better to enable the possibility of an inspired knowledgewhich God, through His Mercy, bestows upon whomever He pleases. ToImam al-Ghazali, every act can be a form of worship towards the Divine;whether one is attending to one’s family’s needs or ruling a country, the actionstherein are guided by God-consciousness, thereby, if performed whole-heart-edly and sincerely, necessitating their just and balanced nature.

The Muslim tradition places heavy emphasis on achieving taqwa (God-consciousness) and striving against one’s self (jihad) to attain blessings and tran-quility in one’s life and bounty and the pleasure of God:

Those who struggle in Our way, We guide them to Our paths and God is withthe people of excellence.52

It can be said that there is a direct correlation between a person’s state of taqwaand the prosperity of his community. A possible exegesis of verse 13:11 of theQur’an (“God does not change a condition of a people…”) reveals a twofoldmeaning: that God does not test a people with affliction until they transgressfrom a state of taqwa to a state of heedlessness, and that God does not changea people’s outward state of abasement, humiliation and abjection until theychange what is in themselves.53 Social vices such as usury, murder, corruption,materialism and excess are but reflections of the inner states of a community.Eradicating such vices, therefore, is to protect the heart from the inroads oftemptation and love of the world and from becoming impervious to the light of

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God (and good) that would enter into it. Therein comes Imam al-Ghazali’srecipe for the purification of the heart as more than just a means for higher spir-itual attainment, but as an alignment of man with world in its natural, just order.

Although unknown to man, God knows the ways an individual’s spiritualstriving affects the world. To the wayfarer, the metaphysical realities and signs(ayat) of God are innumerable—and just like God is apparent (Al-Thahir), Heis also manifest (Al-Batin). Similarly, human actions are both the outer (thahir)and the inner (batin), thereby revealing to the believer that his heart possessesa power that is immeasurable and unbeknownst to average mortal capacities.Saint Thomas’ theological virtues therefore align with Al-Ghazali’s innerdimensions of worship with the goal as one: guiding one’s actions to the loveand pleasure of God.

There is a “litmus test” for the soundness of the heart for Imam al-Ghazali,as his “work on the purification of the heart should not be regarded as an invi-tation to passivity, or spending one’s life in solitude: on the contrary, the tam-ing of the heart into total submission to God will rid one of fear of the oppres-sor and laziness in acting against injustice.”54 This is precisely why Imam al-Ghazali reminds the wayfarer to recite this supplication from the Prophetic tra-dition daily:

Oh God, I seek refuge in you from grief and anxiety, impotence and indo-lence, cowardice and miserliness, and from being overcome by debt and over-powered by men.

Further still, the science of the purification of the heart holds a regimen for theentire body: to be hopelessly attached to God but fully living in this world.Indeed, while Imam al-Ghazali prescribes a life of asceticism in many books inthe Ihya such as the Breaking of the Two Desires (the appetite for food and car-nal pleasure), he then praises the virtue of moderation as the best of paths:“asceticism is not that you should not own anything, but that nothing shouldown you.”55 In that, Imam al-Ghazali’s method throughout the Ihya’ is sober-ing. Seeing that the hearts of his community have darkened and hardened, andhave become in a state of heedlessness ghafla, this method is meant to snapthem out of that state in hopes of leading them to seek the guidance of a manof Knowledge (a arif) who will in turn guide them to defying their own egos anddesires as a tool for achieving good character and God-consciousness.

CONCLUSION

The larger scheme of this type of transformative ma’arifa (understanding)is twofold: the heart attaches itself to God and thereby is more inclined to doinggood, and the enlightened “’seeing heart” transcends this world and allows thelight of God to emanate through it. Such a light may not be seen or believed in

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by the heedless, but it is a powerful force as professed in both the Muslim andChristian traditions—and as experienced by Imam al-Ghazali and SaintThomas. Towards the end of his life, Thomas was believed to have heardChrist speak to him. Christ asked him what he desired, being pleased with hismeritorious life. Thomas replied, “Only you Lord. Only you.” After thisexchange something happened, but Thomas never spoke of it or wrote it down.Because of what he saw, he abandoned his routine and refused to dictate to hissocius Reginald of Piperno. When Reginald begged him to get back to work,Thomas replied: “Reginald, I cannot, because all that I have written seems likestraw to me.”56

What Saint Thomas experienced was not and arguably could not havebeen described by any rational or logical means, and yet here were are as 21st

century readers of Aquinas pondering on the magnitude of that experience (histhawq as described by al-Ghazali) that caused him to stop writing, and whetherthere is a threshold to theological instruction beyond which the wayfarer mustbe left to find his or her own path in a unique way. In reality, belief in the realmof the unseen is cornerstone of belief in God for Muslims and Christians alike.It is the rope of the believer, and the core that permeates the mundane shell ofthis life. Unlocking its secrets can therefore be a more of a revolutionary forcethan any other worldly power, because it is inherently linked to the abode ofthe Divine. In the opening verses of the Verse of the Cow, the second andlongest Surah of the Qur’an, among the most clear characteristics of the believ-ers are:

Those who believe in the unseen and keep up prayer and spend out (in char-ity) of what We have given them, And who believe in that which has beenrevealed to you and that which was revealed before you and they are sure ofthe hereafter. These are on a right course from their Lord and these it is thatshall be successful.57

This is, perhaps, why Imam al-Ghazali ends his Ihya’ with the Book of Death;it is the belief that ultimate happiness lies in union with God that guides thebeliever to act justly in this world. In death, therefore, is the beginning, and inthe passing of the righteous ones before us is a hujja or example for the way-farer. The dead in this world are the dead of heart, and those with hearts alivewith the remembrance of God live forever and taste heaven before they “die.”It is those, the friends of God, who are the most just.

NOTES

1 Imam Abu Abdallah Al-Tirmidhi, Kitab Khatm Al Awliya, (Damascus: Dar Al-Kutub Al-Ilmiyya, 1999), 44. 2 Jean Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas, Volume II, Spiritual Master (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University ofAmerica Press, 1996), 21.

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3 Ibid.,18.4 Ibid., 21.5 Catherine L. Albanese,American Spiritualities: a reader (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001), 3.6 Ibid., 5. 7 Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas, Volume II, 208 Richard Joseph McCarthy, Deliverance from Error: An Annotated Translation of al-Munqidh min al Dalal andOther Relevant Works of Al-Ghazali (Louisville, KY: Fons Vitae, 1999), 83. 9 McCarthy, Deliverance, 81.10 McCarthy, Deliverance, 27.11 This story was narrated by Al-Habib Ali Al-Jifri, a modern-day scholar from the Ba’lawis of Tarim, Yemen, at

the Reviving the Islamic Spirit Conference in Toronto, Canada on December 26th, 2011.12 Qur’an, 29: 2 13 Fergus Kerr, After Aquinas: Versions of Thomism (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 2002), 6. 14 Ibid., 615 Forward to the Summa Theologiae.16 Texts such asAn Apology for the Religious Orders (London: Sands, 1902)and The Religious State, theEpiscopate, the Priestly Office (London: Sands, 1992). 17 Kerr, After Aquinas, 7.18 Summa Contra Gentiles, Part I 19 John 15:1520 Kerr, After Aquinas, 14.21 Qur’an, 22:4622 Qur’an, 26: 8923 Kerr, After Aquinas, 310.24 Ibid., 315.25 Ibid.. 206.26 Qur’an, 13:1127 Kitab Riyadatul Nafs, 9628 Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas, Volume II, 9.29 Summa Theologiae (abbv ST), Ia IIae, a.63, a.3.30 Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas, Volume II, 67.31 Ibid., 68.32 Aquinas’ theory of virtue can be found in “qualities that perfect the intellectual and affective capacities of thehuman person in such a way that enables the person to act in certain characteristic ways” ( Porter, 275). The word“perfect’” here should be understood in two ways: that virtues are perfections for the person who possesses them,and that they lead to actions that are perfect.33 Jacques Maritain, Man and the State (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951), 169. 34 Paul Waddell, Aquinas and Empowerment, The Ethics of Aquinas (Washington, DC: Georgetown UniversityPress, 1997). 35 Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas, Volume II, 278.36 Summa Theologiae, IIa IIae q.188 a.8 ad. 5.37 Aristotle. “Nicomachean Ethics.” The Internet Classics. http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/nicomachaen.html(accessed April 14, 2013).38 Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas, Volume II, 7039 Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali, The Alchemy of Happiness, “SacredTexts.Com, 2008,” (http://www.sacred-texts.com/isl/tah/tah07.htm) 40 Maritain, Man and the State, 93.41 Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas, Volume II, 67. 42 Summa Theologiae, i-ii 96.5.43 John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971), 3. 44 Stephen J. Pope, “The Virtue of Justice,” in The Ethics of Aquinas, ed. Jean Porter (Washington, D.C.:Georgetown University Press, 2002), 275. 45 Ibid., 283.46 Ibid., 283.47 Summa Theologiae, IIa, IIae, q.58, a.1, ad 6.48 Summa Theologiae, I-II, 65.5.49 Summa Theologiae, IIa IIae q.104 a.6.50 Summa Theologiae, II Sent. D.44 expositio textus, ad. 4.51 Summa Theologiae, Ia IIae q.105 a.1.52 Qur’an, 29:69.

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53 Hamza Yusuf and Zaid Shakir, Agenda to Change our Condition (Berkeley, CA: Zaytuna Institute, 2008), vii. 54 See al-Ghazali’s Enjoining the Good and Forbidding the Evil and the section “Do good and avoid evil” (ques-tion 79 in the Justice section of the Secunda Secundæ) for “practical” approaches to injustice and evil. 55 A famous saying by Imam Ali Bin Abi Taleb, the Prophet’s cousin.56 John D. Caputo, Heidegger and Aquinas: an Essay on Overcoming Metaphysics (New York: FordhamUniversity Press, 1982), 253.57 Qur’an, 2:3-5.

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THE VIRTUOUS VISION: THE TRANSFORMATIVE VISION OF VIRTUE AND THE MEANS TO BEATITUDE ACCORDING TO IMAM AL-GHAZALI AND ST. THOMAS AQUINAS

James Whipple

Both Muhammad al-Ghazali (1058-1111 C.E.) and Thomas Aquinas(1225-1274 C.E.) dedicated large portions of their major works to the subjectof virtue. Yet far from simply encouraging good deeds and religiosity asopposed to sin and bad character, the moral vision laid out by both authorsheld virtue as the fundamental transformative means by which one attains gno-sis and experience of the Divine. The goal of human existence, for bothauthors, is to attain the vision of God. This alone can be called happiness. Allother forms of joy or pleasure cannot be properly termed true happiness.Virtue is important because it assists us in recognizing and moving closer to thisvision.

Both authors adopted the Platonic cardinal virtues, albeit thoroughly alter-ing Plato’s schema to fit their respective religious traditions. More than Plato,Aristotle was the main Greek influence on both Aquinas and Ghazali. ForAristotle, happiness (eudemonia) is the greatest good, and virtue is the key com-ponent of eudemonia. In short, the virtuous life is the happy life. For Ghazaliand Aquinas, God is the greatest good, and true happiness is attaining His plea-sure. This happiness is gained by living virtuously in this life and, ultimately, ina more complete manner, in the eternal beatitude of Paradise. Both authors,among the most influential personalities and writers in their respective tradi-tions, saw religion as the means, revealed by divine mercy, to show humanitythe way to structure life so as to attain the greatest good: true happiness. Thetask of squaring the revealed tradition with the Greek philosophical legacy, soinfluential in the Islamic and Christian intellectual circles of their times, fell onthe shoulders of both men. Both acknowledged the deep wisdom of the Greeks

and drew heavily from them, especially Aristotle. Yet, neither slavishly import-ed Aristotelian concepts into their works by clothing them in religious languageand attempting to pass them off as original. Instead, each man critiqued, added,and subtracted selectively, ultimately weighing the Greek concepts by theaccepted revealed truths. Like Aristotle, both Ghazali and Aquinas believedthat only the virtuous attain happiness. Virtue is the means to God, not simplybecause God rewards virtue and punishes vice, but because acquiring thevirtues and ridding oneself of the corresponding vices is the core of the spiritu-al path through which the soul is transformed and prepared to behold God.This paper will examine the virtue theory of Thomas Aquinas and Imam Al-Ghazali in regards to conceptions of 1) God, the greatest good, 2) virtue as themeans by which man comes to know the greatest good, and 3) the beatificvision as the culmination of virtue in this life, in a limited way, and finally in thefullest sense in the hereafter.

GHAZALI ON HAPPINESS

Tellingly, Ghazali’s summary of his own masterpiece the Revival of theReligious Sciences (Ihya’ ‘ulum al-din) in Persian is titled Alchemy ofHappiness. It was the method of attaining happiness that was the core concernof Ghazali’s writings from the time of his spiritual crisis in 1095 C.E. until hisdeath in 1111 C.E. In one of its chapters, titled Knowing Yourself and God,Ghazali lists the most important questions that each human being must askhimself in this life. He writes, “You must seek out the truth about yourself:What sort of thing are you? Where did you come from? Where are you going?Why have you come to this stopping place? For what purpose were you creat-ed? What is your happiness and in what does it lie? What is your misery andin what does it lie?”1 He goes on to assert that it is attaining the Divine Presencealone that gives man true happiness. After establishing this point, he continues,“Turn your face to the resting place of your own happiness, that resting placewhich the elite expression is the Divine Presence and for which the commonexpression is Paradise.”2 The remainder of the text is meant to give the seekerthe blueprint for drawing closer to the Divine Presence.

In book 21 of the Ihya’, Marvels of the Heart, Ghazali argues that not onlyis it possible for the soul to know God through unveilings, but it is in fact the verypurpose of its creation. There are two means to come to know. Because thereare two doors to the heart, one to the external world, and one to the spiritualworld, man can, of course, learn by his surroundings or teachers, but he mayalso learn by spiritual discipline (mujahada), piety, and shunning the lusts of thedunya.3 This discipline and piety correlates, as we will see below, to the cardinaland mystical virtues. Thus, by acquiring virtues and ridding oneself of vices, onereaches the point at which “God become the ruler of the heart, He floods it withmercy and sheds His light upon it, and the breast is opened and there is revealed

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to it the secret of the world of the spirits (malakut), and by a gift of mercy thereis cleared away from the surface of the heart the veil of whiteness that blinds itseye, and there shines in it the real nature of divine things.”4 Ghazali makes itclear that the vision is ultimately “a gift of mercy” from God. It is not somethingthat the seeker can attain by her own will. The task of the seeker is only to pre-pare her heart for the vision, by purifying it of the vices and adorning it with thevirtues. Once the purification is complete the actual vision is from God.

To attain to this point is a matter of his choice… Not by his choice, however,can he procure the gift of the mercy of God, the Exalted… Upon doing this,if his desire is sincere, his intention pure, and his perseverance good, and ifhis lusts do not draw him aside nor the suggestions of the self engross him withthe ties of this present world, there will shine forth the gleams of reality intohis heart.5

Because this unveiling is from God, the focus of Ghazali’s writings is on themeans of purification and preparation for the unveiling. After his discussion ofthe heart and its potential for unveiling in the 21st book of the Ihya, he goesdirectly into a many chaptered discussion on disciplining the nafs, breaking thetwo desires, acquiring virtues, and removing the vices that stand in the way ofthe servant and the direct unveiling of God.

AQUINAS ON HAPPINESS

In the first section of the second part of the Summa Theologica, Aquinasaddresses the question of happiness. Does man’s happiness consist in wealth,honors, fame or glory, power, any bodily good, pleasure, a good of the soul, orany created good at? Thomas’s conclusion is that no created good can bringman true happiness because his deepest yearning is for the uncreated. Hewrites, “Man’s last end is the uncreated good, namely, God, Who alone by Hisinfinite goodness can perfectly satisfy man’s will.”6 He adds, “Final and perfecthappiness can consist in nothing else than the Divine Essence.”7

According to Aquinas, every human being naturally strives for this state ofperfect happiness. Yet, he is clear that the beatific vision is something that isgiven by God and not earned by man. “The beatific vision remains a gift and agrace,”8 he writes. However, despite the fact that true happiness is God-given,man must strive for this state in order to prepare himself for this vision. This isthe reason that Aquinas follows up his discussion of happiness with a practicaland detailed examination of virtue and morality. As he puts it, “Since it is nec-essary to arrive at happiness through actions, it is necessary to consider nexthuman actions.”9

The similarities between Aquinas’s and Ghazali’s view of happiness areclear. Human happiness is only through beholding God and all other forms of

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fulfillment or pleasure cannot be said to be true happiness. Man can, andindeed must, work toward happiness by following the religion, acquiring virtuesand casting off vices. But, one must not think that the beatitude is attainedthrough human will or action. Instead, it is given by God. The human beingcan, however, and indeed must prepare herself to be ready for this gift, and herpreparation is synonymous with attaining virtues and removing vices. One cansee then, why the means of attaining virtue and removing vices was such a cen-tral part of both the Ihya’ and the Summa Theologica. Let us, then, examinethe overall vision of virtue in the writings of each author.

GHAZALI’S VISION OF VIRTUE

Ghazali’s treatment of virtue in the Ihya’ has clear Platonic and Aristotelianinfluence. He bases his discussion on the Platonic cardinal virtues (wisdom,courage, temperance, and justice) and explains virtue as the mean between thetwo vices of excess and deficiency in Aristotelian fashion.10 Ghazali’s vision foracquiring virtue is explained clearly in his section of the Ihya’ on educating chil-dren. The most important thing for the Muslim to learn first is the acts of wor-ship, the divine law, and the scripture. Yet, while a young child is being raisedand educated, he must be taught proper manners (adab) and character (ihklaq)from the very beginning. Once he enters adolescence and his mind is able tounderstand such things, the deeper meaning of the acts of worship and thesecrets of the prophetic mannerisms and virtues must be explained.11 ForGhazali, the prescriptions of religion are much like the prescriptions of a physi-cian (in fact, the medical analogy is one of Ghazali’s favorites). Whereas thephysician treats the diseases of the body the Prophet and his inheritors, thescholars (ulama) treat the diseases of the heart. The purpose of religion is todraw the human being toward perfection until he attains unveiling and experi-ential witnessing or dhawq (literally tasting) of God. This witnessing is possiblein this life, in a limited way, and more fully in the afterlife. Ghazali speaks of itthus: “That resting place for which the elite expression is the Divine Presenceand for which the common expression is ‘Paradise.’”12

The religious prescriptions are mandated, then, to transform the spiritualstate of the aspirant until she is able to take part in this witnessing. This trans-formation is through the acquisition of virtue, and virtue is the fruit of this trans-formation. The acts of an individual are simply the symptoms of his inner real-ity. But Ghazali also mentions that the outward acts themselves have an effecton the inward state. Ghazali continually emphasizes the importance of theinward throughout his works and dedicates an entire book specifically to thesubject titled, “The Inner Dimension of Islamic Worship.”

As much as Ghazali draws on the Greek philosophical legacy, he differsfrom it significantly. After all, his basis for virtue is the Prophet and notAristotle. He quotes many verses from Quran and Hadith, including the

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Prophet’s words, “I came only to perfect noble character.” He thus grounds theimportance of virtue in the source of the religion and not in a foreign tradition.Ghazali introduces each virtue by mentioning that there are three stages thatcomplete a virtue: knowledge, disposition, and action. Ghazali quotes from theQuran, “Of men, only those who fear God possess knowledge.”13 Therefore,although a non-believer may be able to possess certain virtues, these virtues willnot benefit her in the next life if they are not motivated by the will to pleaseGod. M. Umaruddin expresses this concept beautifully in The EthicalPhilosophy of Al-Ghazzali,

Fear of God is a certain attitude of the soul which is created by knowledge andwhich inspires inner acts of wisdom, courage, temperance, and justice.Similarly, the other inner virtues are the attitudes of the soul, which form theinner basis of human conduct. Acts of courage, temperance, and justiceacquire a meaning as the means of salvation only in so far as they are inspiredby faith, love of God and fear of God.14

Ghazali also mentions that the only person who ever attained perfectly bal-anced virtue was the Prophet Muhammad, and everyone else strives for variousdegrees of nearness to the Golden Mean.15

AQUINAS’S VISION OF VIRTUE

Aquinas also draws heavily from the Greek philosophical legacy and, likeGhazali, he makes significant changes to bring it in line with Christian teachings.He also adopts the cardinal virtues, goes into a deep discussion of them, andasserts their importance for every Christian. However, he departs most signifi-cantly from the classical tradition in his emphasis on what he terms the theolog-ical virtues of faith, hope, and charity over the cardinal virtues. Unlike the cardi-nal virtues, the theological virtues are caused by divine infusion rather than thegradual process of habituation.16 By accepting Jesus, one is filled with thesevirtues, although one must act on them to bring them to full fruition. Stephen J.Pope writes, “The Christian moral life is thus rooted in an appropriation ofGod’s gifts and response appropriately to God with gratitude, trust, and love.”17

Wojciech Giertych discusses this point in more detail in his paper on Aquinas’svision of Christian morality. He explains that there is no such thing as a passivevirtue but that all virtues are active. The virtues alter the very desires and inten-tions of the individual within whom they come to reside in firmly. As Giertychputs it, “The virtues express the conscious engagement of the individual in thecreative free choice of the true good.”18 He argues that after much practice of aspecific virtue, the virtue will become habituated to the individual and its masterywill be developed. It will then flow naturally from that person similar to the waya great musician, through much practice, comes to play his instrument with ease

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masterfully. However, there is a limit to the moral disposition that can beacquired in this way. The relationship between disposition and action isexplained by Stephen J. Pope thus: “‘Virtues’ are simply stable dispositions to actin ways that are good; ‘vices’ are stable dispositions to act in ways that are bad.”19

However, as Ghazali also argued, Aquinas holds that true virtue must bemotivated by the desire to please God. When God is sought and his pleasureis the motivation for good character, the virtues will become grace-infused. Thisis where the theological virtues come into play. Unlike Augustine, who, in theCity of God,20doubted that pagans possessed virtues because their practices torestrain vice and bodily desires did not refer to God, Aquinas believed that non-Christians can attain the cardinal virtues through habituation. Non-Christianscannot, however, be infused with the theological virtues. Giertych uses a pow-erful analogy to describe the transformative power of virtue infused by Godwhen he speaks of a divine icon being painted within a person in a lifelongprocess of openness to grace.

BEYOND THE CARDINAL VIRTUES: SPIRITUAL VIRTUES OF GHAZALI AND AQUINAS

Both authors adopted and adapted the cardinal virtues as the “root” virtuesthat a believer must perfect. All other positive traits of character can be tracedback to these four. What is perhaps most interesting about the comparativevirtue theories of Ghazali and Aquinas, however, is not that they both adoptedthe cardinal virtues but that they both articulated a separate set of virtues aboveand beyond the scope of cardinal virtues that are experienced by the believersonly upon their ascent to the divine presence. For Ghazali, these virtues are the“mystical virtues,” or maqamat, of the Sufi path. For Aquinas, on the otherhand, this supernatural set of “theological virtues” contains the infused virtuesof Faith, Hope, and Charity. What follows is a basic outline of each author’sspiritual virtues.

GHAZALI’S MYSTICAL VIRTUES

It is not possible to discuss each of the spiritual virtues in depth in a shortessay. It will suffice to list the virtues of this category and then mention a few ofthe more important points that pertain to our purpose as Ghazali explainedthem. Our aim is to examine how these virtues are conceived of as the meansto perfection and divine witnessing and how the absence of these virtues, thecorresponding vices, constitutes veils on the path to reality.

In the Ihya’, Ghazali mentions repentance, patience, gratitude, hope, fear,poverty, asceticism, unity and trust, love, yearning, intimacy, satisfaction, inten-tion, sincerity, truthfulness, vigilance, self-examination and meditation. Each ofthese virtues is a station that the seeker passes through on his journey to God.

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Ghazali believed that each station along the path, corresponding to a mysticalvirtue, had three aspects: knowledge (‘ilm), disposition (hal), and action (‘amal).Knowledge alters disposition, and disposition produces action. “When knowl-edge is present, disposition is necessarily produced in the soul, provided thereis no obstacle to it; when disposition is created, certain relevant actions cannotbut proceed from it.”21 Disposition is the virtue proper, while knowledge is itscause and action its result. Yet the relationship between disposition and actionis circular for Ghazali. In other words, actions, in turn, have an effect on the dis-position of the individual.

By knowledge, Ghazali does not simply mean that one has been informedabout the benefit of that virtue and the evil of its opposite. What he means byknowledge is a deep understanding and awareness that takes hold of the soul.As Abul Quasem puts it, “What is necessary is that the absolutely certainknowledge should have mastery over the soul, and become so deepseated in itthat it is inseparable from it.”22 However, it is important to note that Ghazaliacknowledged that even when sure knowledge is firmly rooted, the individualmay still not obtain the virtuous disposition due to overpowering desires or pas-sions, which Imam Abdullah al-Haddad, one of al-Ghazali’s commentators,defined as “the powerful inclination of the soul toward something illusory.”23

This explains the placement of the books Disciplining the Soul and Breakingthe Two Desires just before the books on the virtues and vices in the Ihya’.

A virtue has become a disposition when it has become fixed and estab-lished. The Sufis often refer to such a fixed disposition as a maqam (station).Interestingly, unlike his reference to the root virtues, Ghazali does not use theconcept of ‘mean’ (wasat) to refer to the mystical virtues (with the exception ofhope and fear),24 because one cannot have too much gratitude, too much love,or too much sincerity. The more one embodies the mystical virtues, the moreone will progress spiritually. We will see an interesting parallel when we look atAquinas’s theological virtues. The sign that a virtue has become fixed is that theindividual easily exercises it and finds joy in doing so. Therefore, actions nec-essarily result from such a disposition. These dispositions, virtues proper,become stations along the path to experiential knowledge of God. Once theybecome firmly rooted in the self, it is through them that the seeker begins to seereality clearly as the veils of vice are removed. This process will ultimately cul-minate in the mystical witnessing of God that corresponds to the highest station,the virtue of love and total reliance on God. This love is attained becausethrough unveiling, one comes to know God more fully and one’s love of Goddirectly corresponds to one’s knowledge of Him.

VIRTUE’S GOAL: UNION

The purpose of human existence is to know God. As we have seen, this“know-ing” is not simply information but is a transformative knowledge inti-

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mately related to action and disposition. When these elements unite to expandor purify one’s heart, intellect, or consciousness, the human being is able toknow God more fully. In other words, since the heart is the receptacle of thisdivine knowledge, when its veils are removed, it is able to know the Divinemore perfectly. Articulating knowledge in a way that might shock the modernreader, but would make perfect sense to Aristotle, Ghazali essentially equatesknowledge with virtue and ignorance with vice. In Ghazali’s UniqueUnknowable God, Fadlou Shehadi explains the way in which this virtue-knowl-edge culminates in union. He writes, “Man was created in the image of hisCreator and his goal in this life must be to live up to this likeness and seek toenrich his character by becoming like God in every possible way.”25 On onelevel, the attainment of virtue and the shedding of vice is described by Ghazaliusing the spatial metaphor “drawing near.” What is meant by, “drawing near”is that the human being is taking on God’s qualities and is discarding qualitiesthat are not “God-like.” The second level of union, which Shehadi calls “sub-jective tawhid,” is when the individual has become free of love, contemplation,and adoration of all else until “only God remains as the content of his con-sciousness.”26 Duality is transcended, and it is as if God is witnessing Godthrough him and his own identity is absent. This is termed by the Sufis “anni-hilation in God” (fana fi’llah). The final stage of union is when the individualonce again perceives himself and other things but with a newfound constantawareness that all is being created and sustained by God in each moment andthat all things share one essence. In effect, one is witnessing God’s agency ineverything and God’s relation to the universe as “necessary existent-dependentexistent.”27 This level is termed subsistence (baqa) by the Sufis and “objectivetawhid” by Shehadi. For Ghazali, this is the highest realization of tawhid and thegoal of all human existence, a goal attainable only through virtue.

AQUINAS’S THEOLOGICAL VIRTUES

Central to Aquinas’s theory of virtue are the theological virtues. Thesevirtues, namely, faith, hope, and charity, are infused by God’s grace into theindividual until they adapt the intellect and will to adhere to God. Faith adaptsthe mind beyond its natural limits into the supernatural where, as ProfessorGiertych says, “God hides in the mystery we can only penetrate through faith.”Hope is generated by faith and its virtuousness lies in its proper reliance onGod.28 Hope allows one to have the proper relationship to hardship and strug-gle. In addition, hope creates the proper emotional response that a personshould demonstrate when faced with some future, difficult, but attainable,good.29 These two virtues (faith and hope) lead to charity. Charity enables indi-viduals to love God and others. It establishes a friendship with God, and thatfriendship extends to all the friends of God.

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For Aquinas, these are the Christian virtues. A disbeliever, he argues, canhave a share of temperance, courage, prudence, and justice, but he cannot besaid to have faith, hope, or charity. Faith, hope, and charity form a type ofascending staircase toward friendship with God. These virtues are infused intothe soul by God, unlike the cardinal virtues, which are acquired through repetition.

Faith, for Aquinas, signifies a proper relationship to the unknown andunseen. It is not simply blind acceptance; in fact, it does not exclude certitude.30

Faith is perhaps explained best in Isaiah 7:9: “Unless you believe, you shall notunderstand.” Faith is the right view of creation such that one’s cognitive framesare transformed to perceive everything that happens to one in the correct light.

Faith will eventually develop into the virtue of Hope. Hope is fundamen-tally, as Romanus Cessario puts it, “proper reliance on the divine help.”31 It ischaracterized by the correct emotional response to each situation. Althoughthere are no sins of excess or deficiency in the infused virtues (since one cannever have too much faith, hope, or charity), there are sins against, or perver-sions of, hope. These perversions of hope, which help to illustrate what hopeproperly is, are despair and presumption. Despair is a lack of hope in God,which usually causes one to forsake Gods commandments, since exerting one-self in that way appears pointless if one has no hope for God’s mercy andacceptance. Presumption is not an excess in hope, but a corruption of it (dueto pride), in which an individual also forsakes God’s commandments, but forthe opposite reason, namely, that one assumes oneself to be entirely safe fromGod’s punishment or displeasure.

The culmination of the theological virtues is charity. Charity is defined asfriendship with God, friendship being the most complete realization of love andthus the most full relationship one can have with God. While Aristotle held thatfriendship is the relationship between equals and can never be between man andGod, Aquinas (and Ghazali) differ. As Eberhard Schockenhoff writes, “God’slove draws human beings up into the community of his blessed life, and givesthem that character and dignity that altogether and alone enable a friendship withhim.”32 A person in this state has been thoroughly transformed by God’s grace,and the theological virtues have become infused in her being. Schockenhoffexplains, “If through the effect of charity people become friends of God, twothings happen: (1) God acts in them and (2) they make themselves available tothe affairs of God in the world by means of their natural capacities.”33

As with Ghazali’s mystical virtues, the doctrine of the mean does not prop-erly apply to the theological virtues. This is because one cannot be said to havetoo much faith, hope, or charity. The goal is, rather, ever to increase in thesevirtues since their capacities can never be exhausted. However, perversions ofthese virtues are possible as was mentioned with regard to hope.

Through virtue, then, one becomes Christ like and is drawn closer to God.One is able, eventually, to take part in this vision of God through one’s purified

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virtuous soul. “Man’s path to God is thus thought of not simply as a prepara-tion for the reception of future happiness after death but rather as a growthprocess of a happiness already realized initially in moral acts, which will leadfrom its now imperfect shape to eschatological perfection.”34 The following sec-tion will examine the stages leading to this perfection in Islam and Christianity.

THREE STAGES OF RELIGION IN CHRISTIANITY AND ISLAM

One of the striking similarities between Christianity and Islam with regardto virtue acquisition and attaining the greatest good is the three dimensionalexposition of the path. In Christianity, there are three stages along the path tovirtue. The first stage, the beginning, is the stage of the law and the moral pre-cepts. The main concern of this stage is to stay away from sin and fight inclina-tions not consistent with charity. This is the stage of the spiritually immature,and not unlike a child, the beginner must be disciplined until what is rightbecomes ingrained and freely chosen. Pinckaers notes, “The stage of disciplinecorresponds to the purgative way, in which the soul undergoes the purificationsneeded in order that God may act in it and reveal himself to it.”35

The second, intermediate, stage is the stage of the gospel vision and theNew Testament. The intermediate stage corresponds to young adulthood. Atthis stage, one has developed an internal desire for moral excellence. Slowly,lower desires give way to the rational will, and virtue comes to be sought for itsown sake and not for fear of punishment or desire for reward. One’s disposi-tion or, as Aristotle would put it, habitus has been altered, and the virtues arebecoming firmly established.

The third and final stage is the perfecting stage in which the new law, theHoly Spirit, comes to dominate. It is the stage of spiritual maturity. It is thestage of true freedom (what Pinckaers calls “freedom for excellence”) in thesense that man now has control over his actions and is able to direct themwholeheartedly to the greatest good. Charity has become perfected and deeplyrooted in the soul, and one is immersed in contemplation and love of God.Aquinas summarizes each stage succinctly (“duty” or “endeavor”) in theSumma Theologica:

The first duty which is incumbent on man is to give up sin and resist concu-piscence, which are opposed to charity; this belongs to beginners, in whosehearts charity is to be nursed and cherished lest it be corrupted. The secondduty of man is to apply his energies chiefly to advance in virtue; this belongsto those who are making progress and who are principally concerned thatcharity may be increased and strengthened in them. The third endeavor andpursuit of man should be to rest in God and enjoy Him; and this belongs tothe perfect who desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ.36

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In Islam these stages are also explained, with different language, but with strik-ing similarity to the Christian model. The stages are the Shari’a (sacred law), theTariqa (spiritual path), and the Haqiqa (experiential reality). The Shari’a is theoutward law and outlines the parameters for worship, commerce, interperson-al relations, and governance, among other things. It judges by the outward andestablishes the bare minimum for salvation.

The Tariqa moves inward toward that which is unseen. It is the seconddimension of spiritual life. Thus, if outwardly, according to the Shari’a, oneshould not murder or commit adultery, inwardly, according to the Tariqa, onewould recognize the vices of jealousy and lust as the root of these outwardactions. The desire to murder someone is the symptom of one or more myri-ad vices, i.e. jealousy, greed, rancor, etc. These vices are also forbidden by Godjust as is its extreme symptom, murder. It is not the realm of the Shari’a to leg-islate or punish based on the inward, but only on the basis of outward acts.Thus, the Tariqa is the means of purification from vice and virtue acquisitiontoward approach of God.

The Haqiqa is the culmination of the Shari’a and the Tariqa and the fruitof religion. It is the experiential knowledge of God. It is the tasting (dhawq) thatGhazali speaks of. Ghazali’s Ihya is a practical manual (muamalat) towardsattaining Haqiqa. He does not speak elaborately of what Haqiqa is, because,according to him, it is pointless, and even harmful, to speak about Haqiqa withthose who have not attained it. It is something that must be experienced to beunderstood, and speaking about it may create mental images that will preventone from eventually attaining it. Thus, the Ihya focuses on the practical imple-mentation of Shari’a and Tariqa together in order ultimately to attain Haqiqa.

Although there are some very real differences in the three stage systems ofChristianity and Islam, they both rest upon the general understanding that theoutward commandments and prohibitions are the beginning of the path toGod, and that the intermediate stage is characterized by a focus on transform-ing the inward reality of the individual, by means of acquisition, through God’sgrace and spiritual struggle, of the virtuous qualities that draw one nearer toGod. Finally, they both hold that there is a final stage in which the aspirant hasbeen thoroughly transformed and attains a type of friendship with, and spiritu-al witnessing of, God. This individual is then expected to guide other seekersalong the path and, by virtue of his friendship to God, is able to benefit human-ity and assist others in drawing near.

It should be noted that in both systems, the outward first stage is not abro-gated when one attains a certain station inward. Instead, the first stages are for-mational until the desire to do right becomes ingrained inwardly and leads to atransformation culminating in the vision of God.

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CONCLUSION

Ghazali and Aquinas, both oft considered the greatest theologians of theirtraditions, placed the utmost importance on virtue. Their visions of virtue werevast and drawn from all the virtue theorists that had come before them.Grounded firmly in the sacred scriptures and in the example of Jesus andMuhammad respectively, they culled wisdom from the Muslim or Christianscholars, theologians, and mystics before them as well as the philosophers bothancient and contemporaneous. Far from shallow or sectarian, both men soughtwisdom wherever they could find it while remaining firmly rooted in their tra-dition. They articulated a vision of virtue that places experiential vision of Godas the aim and purpose of human existence. Religion, they argued, is estab-lished by God so that men and women can attain that vision in this life and thenext. The commands and prohibitions of religion are revealed, not becauseGod wants to see who can follow arbitrary rules and who cannot, but so thathuman beings might be transformed by virtue and purified of vice in order toenter into the divine presence and witness the perfect happiness of the beatificvision.

Father Giertych and Servais Pinchaers argue that it was the shift from thistransformative vision of religion into one focused more on the ability to con-form to the outward prohibitions and commandments divorced from its high-er purpose that gave birth, in direct reaction, to the secular vision of the mod-ern world. When God’s will was seen to be imposed tyrannically on man,devoid of the deeper understanding of the transcendent dimension and higherpurpose of religion, it naturally gave birth to a radical assertion of human “freewill” outside of and often articulated in opposition to “God’s will.” Whether weaccept their argument for the modern world or not, it is clear that both Islamand Christianity currently suffer from a disengagement of the vision of trans-formative virtue articulated by Ghazali and Aquinas. Ghazali himself observedthis disengagement in his own time. He observed that religion had becomemore about outward conformity and less about its true purpose: inward trans-formation. The last fifteen years of his life was dedicated to “reviving” andreestablishing this spiritually transforming core of religion to its proper place.Aquinas sought to synthesize all of the knowledge of his time and create a com-prehensive method for attaining a life filled with charity and ultimately culmi-nating in the beatific vision.

A quick survey of the Christian and Muslim world in the 21st centuryreveals that believers are in need, more than ever, of the transformative visionof virtue articulated hundreds of years ago by Aquinas and Ghazali. Many areturning away from religion altogether, often citing the disillusionment with out-ward focus on empty rituals devoid of any spiritual depth. On the other hand,dangerous strands of fundamentalism, extremism, and scriptural literalism,which themselves often negate the inward experiential vision and deny the

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transformative purpose of religion, have come to dominate the global discourseof both the Muslim and Christian world. The visions of Ghazali and Aquinasstand the test of time as striking examples of the spiritual depth and intellectu-al breath of their respective traditions. Their message of the spiritually trans-formative nature of virtue and its culmination in the true happiness, fulfillment,and flourishing of the human soul that is the direct vision of the uncreatedReality will continue to speak to seekers of happiness and God for as long ashappiness and God are sought.

NOTES

1 Muhammad al-Ghazzali, Al-Ghazzali On Knowing Yourself and God, 14th ed. (Chicago: Kazi Publications,Inc, 2003), 7.2 Ibid., 8. 3 Muhammad Al-Ghazali, The Marvels of the Heart: Book 21 of The Revival of the Religious Sciences(Louisville: Fons Vitae, 2010), 74–75.4 Ibid., 53.5 Ibid., 55.6 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, in the Christian Classics Ethereal Library,http://www.ccel.org/ccel/aquinas/summa (accessed December 20, 2011).FS Q3, A17 Ibid., FS Q3, A8.8 Georg Wieland, “Happiness (Ia IIae, qq. 1-5),” in The Ethics of Aquinas, ed. Stephen J. Pope (WashingtonD.C.: George Washington University Press, 2002), 67.9 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, in the Christian Classics Ethereal Library,http://www.ccel.org/ccel/aquinas/summa (accessed December 20, 2011). FS Q6, prol.10 M. Umaruddin, The Ethical Philosophy of Al-Ghazzali (Aligarh: The Aligarh Muslim University Press,1962), 151–52.11 Ibid., 149.12 Muhammad al-Ghazzali, Al-Ghazzali On Knowing Yourself and God, 14 ed. (Chicago: Kazi Publications,Inc, 2003), 8.13 Quran 35:2814 M. Umaruddin, The Ethical Philosophy of Al-Ghazzali (Aligarh: The Aligarh Muslim University Press,1962), 152.15 Ibid.16 Stephen J. Pope, ed., The Ethics of Aquinas (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2002), 34.17 Ibid.18 Wojciech Giertych, Virtuous Human Action: An Icon of God. Aquinas’s Vision of Christian Morality. 46:35.http://www.dspt.edu/197810127171930310/cwp/view.asp?A=3&Q=276377&C=55794 (accessed November2011)19 Stephen J. Pope, ed., The Ethics of Aquinas (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2002), 34.20 Augustine, City of God Chapter 19:25, trans. Michael Dods (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2009),638.21 Muhammad Abul Quasem, The Ethics of Al-Ghazali: a Composite Ethics in Islam (Delmar, N.Y.: CaravanBooks, 1978), 150. 22 Ibid.,151.23 Mostafa Al-Badawi, Imam ʻAbdallah Al-� addād: Sufi Sage of Arabia, 1st U.S. ed. (Louisville, MD: FonsVitae, 2005), 30.24 Muhammad Abul Quasem, The Ethics of Al-Ghazali: a Composite Ethics in Islam (Delmar, N.Y.: CaravanBooks, 1978), 152.25 Fadlou Shehadi, Ghazali’s Unique Unknowable God (Lieden, Netherlands: E.J. Brill, 1964), 2926 Ibid.,32–33.27 Ibid., 33.28 Romanus Cessario, O.P., “The Theological Virtue of Hope (IIa IIae, qq. 17-22),” in The Ethics of Aquinas,ed. Stephen J. Pope (Washington D.C.: George Washington University Press, 2002), 23529 Ibid., 234.

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30 Stephen F. Brown, “The Theological Virtue of Faith: An Invitation to an Ecclesial Life of Truth (IIa IIae,qq. 1-16),” in The Ethics of Aquinas, ed. Stephen J. Pope ((Washington D.C.: George Washington UniversityPress, 2002), 222.31 Romanus Cessario, O.P., “The Theological Virtue of Hope (IIa IIae, qq. 17-22),” in The Ethics of Aquinas,ed. Stephen J. Pope (Washington D.C.: George Washington University Press, 2002), 234.32 Eberhard Schockenhoff, “The Theological Virtue of Charity (IIa IIae, qq. 23-46),” in The Ethics of Aquinas,ed. Stephen J. Pope (Washington D.C.: George Washington University Press, 2002), 248.33 Ibid., 251.34 Eberhard Schockenhoff, “The Theological Virtue of Charity (IIa IIae, qq. 23-46),” in The Ethics of Aquinas,ed. Stephen J. Pope (Washington D.C.: George Washington University Press, 2002), 245.35 Servais Pinckaers, The Sources of Christian Ethics (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press,1995), 363.36 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, in the Christian Classics Ethereal Library,http://www.ccel.org/ccel/aquinas/summa (accessed December 20, 2011).II II Q 163 A 4

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SAINT THOMAS AQUINAS AND IMAM AL-GHAZALI ON THE ATTAINMENT OF HAPPINESS

R. Rania Shah

In The Death of Ivan Ilyich, Leo Tolstoy portrays Ivan Ilyich as havingcome, within days of his death, to the following realization: “What if my entirelife, my entire conscious life, simply was not the real thing?” As Tolstoy goeson to describe,

It occurred to him that what had seemed utterly inconceivable before—that hehad not lived the kind of life he should have—might in fact be true. It occurredto him that those scarcely perceptible impulses of his to protest what peopleof high rank considered good, vague impulses which he has always sup-pressed, might have been precisely what mattered, and all the rest not beenthe real thing.1

The reputable opinions that governed Ivan Ilyich’s pursuit of happiness—opin-ions regarding his “official duties, his manner of life, his family, the valuesadhered to by people in society, and in his profession”—though not complete-ly false, are shown, by the looming prospect of his death, to be failing or absurdattempts at fulfilling his desire to possess the ultimate good: happiness. He rec-ognizes that all along there had been “scarcely perceptible impulses” warninghim of the lack of perfection embodied in the ends of his desires, impulses thathe had not been used to listening to but now, in the face of his death, are madeclear.2 According to the greatest philosophers, these voices that man hears, bethey stifled or not, are the first percepts of the natural law that resonate through-out our thinking about one’s pursuit of happiness.3

In early philosophically oriented societies, happiness was a prominenttheme in literature. The translation of the complete text of Aristotle’sNicomachean Ethics devotes both the first and last books to the subject of hap-

piness and suggests that the moral life and happiness are inseparable.4 It is ananalogous message that Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), the greatDominican priest, philosopher, and theologian, delivers in his monumentalwork, the Summa Theologica. Known as a doctor of the church, Saint Thomasdelivers in the Summa not only a manual of Dominican doctrine of God, trin-ity, creation, and incarnation but also of the strengths and weaknesses found inhuman nature.5 It is in the Summa that Saint Thomas addresses the agelesstopic of happiness, or the ultimate good, through the framework of Christiantheology and the insight of human nature and human flourishing.

ST. THOMAS ON THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS

Saint Thomas’s theoretical framework of the ultimate good hinges onAristotle’s common notions and conditions of happiness. In NicomacheanEthics, Aristotle’s first common notion of happiness states that, whatever elsehappiness may turn out to be, it is always something absolutely ultimate.6 SaintThomas explains this idea in Article Six of the first question of the Summa. Ashe states, in the particularity of striving and action, “the strength of the firstintention, which results with regard to the final end, remains preserved in everystriving for every possible object even when one does not expressly think aboutthe final end.”7 Despite the plurality and particularity of one’s striving andaction, the person develops not only a natural but also an intentional and prac-tical unity regarding his goals and purpose in life, and with this unity, he is able,at all times, to answer for his actions. Therefore, a person cannot have morethan one “final end.”8 According to Saint Thomas, it is the connection betweenhuman striving and fulfillment that provides this decisive argument for the finalend.9 This criterion is substantial enough to rule out other candidates for hap-piness, such as wealth, honor, pleasure, and virtue, which merely assist in theattainment of natural goods and, thus, indirectly serve one’s basic needs forfood, clothing, and shelter, or for possessions of artificial goods, such asmoney.10 Other attributes, such as honor, glory, and power, cannot claim finalends in themselves, either, since they are indifferent to good and evil which, asSaint Thomas notes, are essential conditions for happiness.

Aristotle’s second common notion of happiness is the idea of self-suffi-ciency, a necessary criterion for obtaining happiness.11 Whatever human ful-fillment may turn out to be, it must contain within itself everything necessary formaking one self-sufficient in regard to obtaining happiness.12 This idea of self-sufficiency as a criterion for an ultimate good is explained by Saint Thomasthrough the theory of the natural law and is a premise for his moral philosophy,which states that both speculative and practical reason are based on some self-evident propositions.13 In discussing the natural law, Saint Thomas states thatwhat the human intellect first grasps is the notion of being, which is the foun-dation for the first indemonstrable principle: one cannot simultaneously affirm

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and deny a truth. One’s practical reason, however, when aligning one’s action,first grasps the notion of what is good, which is the end of action. Thus, the firstpractical principle is that good is what all things desire. And the first precept ofthe natural law is that good is to be pursued and evil avoided. All other preceptsof the natural law are based on this percept.14

Saint Thomas demonstrates that Aristotle’s notions of an absolutely ulti-mate end and self-sufficiency are embedded within the grasp of the hierarchi-cal order of the natural law.15 He illustrates that at each level of natural inclina-tion, man’s rational nature directs him toward the good that renders him moreself-sufficient. At the level of inclination of all substances, he is directed to pre-serve himself in existence, which is crucial to self-sufficiency. At the next levelof inclination, that of animals, he is inclined toward establishing a family andattaining social goods that provide nurturing, education, and companionship,by which one moves into greater degrees of self-sufficient activities. Finally, atthe level of inclination of rational animals, man is ultimately directed, in thepursuit of truth, toward those intellectual activities that make him more able tocontain within himself the resources of his happiness.16 Saint Thomas con-cludes that the activity specific to man is his exercise of the powers of reasonalong the lines of excellence. Thus, the true nature of happiness is the “activityof the soul in accord with virtue, and preeminently with the exercise of the high-est and best virtue.”17

This preeminent virtuous activity, according to Saint Thomas, consists of“the exercise of speculative wisdom in the contemplation of God.”18 SaintThomas’s theology affirms that God is both the source and the end of all things.The Summa thus discusses God, then the rational creature’s advance towardsGod, and finally Christ, the way to God. The mystery of God as Triune is thefoundation of all other mysteries of the Christian faith. God is the first cause ofeverything that exists, and God creates in order to communicate His divinegoodness to His creation. This includes both the immaterial creatures, such asthe angels, and the material creatures, of which the most noble is the humanbeing. Humans are composed of an intellectual soul united with a body and aremade in the “image of God.” Thus, they are called to know and love God.19

Saint Thomas’s vision of life is goal directed, and his teachings on ethicsprovide for a general ordering of daily life activities with God-consciousness.He describes human life as meaningful, seeing the principle source of humanhappiness as knowing God. Humanity is connected with God through the activ-ity of the human will in the present life, but this connection is neither simplenor permanent as it is subject to constant interruptions and challenges.20 SaintThomas maintains that rectitude of the will, the proper ordination to God, is aprerequisite for happiness and that his teaching of ethics is no more than aninstruction manual of how one achieves that rectitude.21 His teaching on ethicsdoes not provide a reducible knowledge of the commands of God, but it offerswisdom that makes possible a deepening friendship with God. As a result, the

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practical action of a human being in practicing ethics leads one towards a con-templative love of God. Saint Thomas’s theological ethics does not lose its con-templative aim. It is always directed by the consideration of God, since He isthe end in view of which all decisions are made and the Good in connectionwith which all other goods are situated.22

In his discussion of the virtues, Saint Thomas explains that the moralvirtues are located only in the will or in powers whose acts can be commandedby the will.23 According to Aristotle, virtue literally means “perfection” or“excellence,” as relevant to the two basic powers of the human soul: the intel-lect (or reason) and passion. A vice is the disposition to act in ways that areopposite to virtue. Intellect, will, and emotions are all potential subjects of vicesand virtues.24 Moral virtue is the perfection of passion (love, hate, fear, anger,etc.) through a transformation of passions by persuasion of reason.25 While allvirtues contribute in some way to one’s rational perfection, not every virtue dis-poses one to live a morally good life. Intellectual virtues, such as the ability tograsp universals or the causes of the world’s origin, may aid in rational perfec-tion but do not dispose one to live morally. The moral virtues are related tomoral decisions and actions, which Saint Thomas describes as “good [qualities]of mind whereby we live righteously.”26

The Summa discusses a multitude of virtues that are indicative of humangoodness, but there are essentially four virtues that Saint Thomas describes asthe “cardinal virtues,” from which all other virtues flow. These are the virtuesof prudence, justice, fortitude, and of temperance. They are the qualities onwhich a successful human life “turns,” and the principle habits on which the restof the virtues hinge. (The Latin root of “cardinal” is cardo for “hinge.”)27 Forexample, prudence denotes rectitude in discretion of actions, while temperancemoderates passions to restrain insatiable desires.28 The significance of the car-dinal virtues is “the good of reason,” which avails the human being to grasp theperfective ends of one’s actions.

Saint Thomas places prudence at the head of the list of cardinal virtues. Itis the first and best of virtues because it is itself a perfection of reason, whichapprehends something universal, the good of man.29 Thomas defines prudenceas the “wisdom concerning human affairs” or “right reason with respect toaction,” which instills in one the habit of making good moral judgments aboutone’s behavior.30 Justice is the second highest virtue since it is the appetite ofreason and it directs one to those actions by which the common good is bothestablished and confirmed.31 Among the passions that are subject to the direc-tion of prudence, those that protect one’s life are most important. Therefore,fortitude, which is the virtue of the irascible passion, is more important thantemperance, which moderates the passions concerned with tactile pleasure andpain.32

All other virtues, according to Saint Thomas, rest upon these cardinalvirtues. The more one practices these virtues, the more one’s power is brought

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to perfection and the more one can achieve perfect unity in one’s nature.33

Saint Thomas states that one grows morally by becoming habituated to treatingpeople justly and by making the right choices about how to respond to one’sown desires. He refers to Aristotle’s De caelo, where Aristotle defines virtue asthe ultimate power that can perfect certain capabilities of human nature and,when the higher-order capabilities are exercised, can bring the fulfillment ofhuman nature to its end or telos.34 This telos is eudemonia, or happiness,where “happiness” is understood in terms of completion, perfection, or well-being. Therefore, a good life is guided by “right reason,” which is learned bybeing “rational creatures.”35

Saint Thomas endorses two kinds of happiness: the limited happinessattainable in human society through one’s natural resources and the perfecthappiness of the afterlife attainable by Christians through God’s grace.36 Hemakes a distinction between the virtues by differentiating those that lead to thehappiness of this world from those that are necessary for the next. WhileThomas thinks that moral perfection is synonymous with achieving one’s finalend, he construes that end in terms of beatitude, or supernatural union withGod. The “acquired virtues” that lead to limited happiness are a condition ofone’s natural resources and efforts. Through acquired virtues, one can cultivatesome measure of virtue and, in turn, be happier than one would be otherwise.Perfect or complete happiness, however, lies beyond what one is able toachieve on one’s own. Thus, Saint Thomas insists that “it is necessary for manto receive from God some additional [habits], whereby he may be directed tosupernatural happiness.”37 These “superhuman virtues,” or infused virtues,which Christians obtain through God’s divine favor, include faith, hope, andcharity.38 These are the only virtues that have God as their object and, there-fore, enable one to share in the divine nature. Thus the Christian moral life isbased on acknowledging God’s gift and responding to God accordingly withgratitude, trust, and love.39

According to Saint Thomas, limited happiness in this world is valuable inand of itself since it enables one to acquire knowledge of God, which is a step-ping stone to perfect happiness.40 Any enjoyment in the acquired virtues, evenif it is an intellectual pleasure, is internalized, and the body benefits from thishappiness. A healthy body is necessary since poor health can impede the willfrom selecting appropriate desires. Physical and spiritual pleasures work togeth-er because soul and body form one indivisible entity. As Saint Thomas states,“Since it is natural to the soul to be united to the body, the perfection of thesoul cannot exclude the natural perfection of the body.”41 Limited happinessalso lies in the community of friends who experience one’s care and whom onecan enjoy seeing flourish,42 albeit a friendship for the sake of God would leadto perfect happiness.43

Perfect happiness, according to Saint Thomas, results more from the activ-ity of speculative reason than that of practical reason. He explains that if God

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ON BEHALF OF LOVE

Every truth without exception—no matter who makes it—is from God.

If a bird got accused of singing too early in the morning,

if a lute began to magically play on its own in the square

and the enchanting sounds it made drove a pair of young lovers into a wild, public display of

passion,

if this lute and bird then got called before the inquisitionand their lives were literally at stake,

could not God walk up and say before the court,

“All acts of beauty are mine: all happen on the behalf of love?”

And while God was there, testifying for our heart’s desires, hopefully the judge would be astute enough

to brave a question,that could go,

“Dear God, you say all acts of beauty are yours;Surely we can believe that. But what of all actions

we see in this world,for is there any force in existence greater than the power

of your omnipresent hand?”

And God might have responded, “I like that question,”adding, “May I ask you one as well?”

And then God would say,

“Have you ever been in a conversation when children entered the room, and you then ceased speaking because your

wisdom knew they were not old enough to benefit—to understand?

As exquisite is your world, most everyone in it, is spiritually young.

Spirituality is love, and love never wars with the minute, the day,one’s self and others. Love would rather die

than maim a limb, a wing.

Dear, anything that divides man from man, earth from sky, light and dark, one religion from another…

O, I best keep silent, I see a childjust entered the room.”44

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is the final end of human action and happiness consists of the possession of thisend, then the “possessing” activity can only consist of contemplation.45 If a per-son were a final end, then practical reason, which is the ordering and formingof passions to achieve a virtuous life, would be happiness. As practical reasonis always connected to the sense world, it cannot cause true human flourishingand only leads to limited happiness.46 Perfect happiness is the final and ulti-mate goal for mankind. He attests that the natural state of the human intellectcomes to rest only when the intellect recognizes the essence of something.47

This, according to Saint Thomas, is only achieved through the beatific vision orthe vision of the divine essence. Human fulfillment requires not only the knowl-edge of God as the originator of the world but also a type of participation in thevision of God. Saint Thomas portrays perfect happiness as the sublime bliss ofcontemplating God and which can only be fully realized in the next life.

The perfection of happiness, in this world and the next, depends on thedegree of perfection that each mind attains, which, in turn, depends on howdeeply one desires and loves God, as love increases the understanding of thingsknown. Thus, the key to happiness for Saint Thomas Aquinas is love. How oneis to realize the perfect happiness or the beatific vision of God was never fullyarticulated by Saint Thomas as he died just shy of his fiftieth birthday, leavinghis great work the Summa unfinished. That one, however, is in principle ableto achieve this happiness is seen as possible.48 His own life may be a testamentto this possibility, as near the end of his life, he had a divine experience whilecelebrating mass in the chapel of St. Nicholas in Naples that caused him tostate, “I can no longer write, for God has given me such glorious knowledge thatall contained in my works are as straw—barely fit to absorb the holy wondersthat fall in a stable.”49 Three months later he died. However, Saint Thomas didwrite, and he wrote enough to leave significant spiritual and practical insightsabout God and the meaning of human flourishing.

IMAM AL-GHAZALI ON THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS

A few centuries before Saint Thomas Aquinas, in the region of Persia, AbuHamid Muhammad bin Ahmad Al-Ghazali (1058-1111), one of the greatestIslamic jurists, theologians, and mystical thinkers of all time, provided his wis-dom on the question of happiness. His conclusion, similar to that of SaintThomas, was that happiness is in the knowledge of God and the key to thisknowledge is love. As Saint Thomas is considered to be a doctor for theCatholic Church, Imam Al-Ghazali is known by Muslims as the reformer(Mujadid) and the proof of Islam (Hujjat al-Islam). It was through his person-al journey to realize the truth, or the “real thing” that one ought to pursue inlife, that he found for himself certainty of the Ultimate Reality and self knowl-edge. This quest he embarked on compelled him to leave the comforts of hislife and his prestigious scholarly position in society to wander the earth in

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search of certainty. His ten-year journey was not so much for religious instruc-tion as for religious experience, and he chronicled this experience in his mostcelebrated work, The Revival of the Religious Sciences (Ihya’ Ulum al-Din).Considered to be his magnum opus, The Revival is Imam Al-Ghazali’s endeav-or to revive the faith of Islam by reconstructing the religious sciences on thebasis of Islamic mysticism and by giving it a theoretical foundation under theinfluence of philosophy.49

Imam Al-Ghazali analyzed many bodies of work from different philoso-phies and traditions, and his writings were often derived from multiple sources.He frequently cites the following proverb: “Eat the vegetable wherever it comesfrom, and do not ask where the garden is.”50 Though he was influenced by allsources of knowledge, he took for his own teaching what he considered to bethe truth. In the study of philosophy, Al-Ghazali was influenced by Muslimphilosophers like Al-Farabi and Ibn Sina, and he quotes heavily from the worksof the latter.51 In his works on ethics, especially those focused on the discussionof the virtues and their psychological basis, he derives his ideas from the worksof Greek philosophic traditions, especially Plato and Aristotle.52 Al-Ghazali isnot known to cite sources explicitly; instead, he weaves knowledge into hisworks through reference to his own experience of gaining and realizing reality.53

His moral philosophy is a synthesis and a practical expression of the “goldenmean,” as articulated by Aristotle,54 and the methodology used by SaintThomas, who incorporated Christian theology into his discussion of ethics. Al-Ghazali also took the framework developed by philosophers and clothed it withthe teachings of Islam and his personal faith as a mystic.

Prior to writing The Revival, Al-Ghazali wrote The Criterion of Action,which applies ethical premises to obtaining of knowledge and the actions thatlead one to the ultimate happiness.55 In this work, he maintains that his processis to go beyond mere imitation of the philosophers and to apply logic estab-lished in his earlier work The Standard of Knowledge to form his view ofethics.56 Included in The Criterion are the following expositions, each of whichserves as the chapter title for the subsequent discussion of the topic:

“Neglect of seeking happiness is folly” (Chapter 1);“The way to happiness is knowledge and action (Chapter 3);“Refinement of the soul, its faculties and its character qualities” (Chapter 4); “The specific way of character training” (Chapter 14);“Principal virtues” (Chapter 15);“Excellence of reason, knowledge and action” (Chapter 19);“The sign of the first resting place of those who seek God” (Chapter 29).

The aim of The Criterion is to discover the kinds of knowledge and actionsthat lead to man’s highest end, happiness. In this book, Al-Ghazali presents apsychological analysis of the soul and its path to ultimate happiness, which he

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states can only be realized in the hereafter and requires the development ofmysticism in the present life.59 In The Criterion, Al-Ghazali discusses his viewof ethics as being independent from politics and primarily concerned withmoral refinement of the individual. He also describes it as the essential disci-pline that not only serves all other sciences but is also served by them.

It is this second description of ethics pertaining to one’s moral refinementthat is elaborated on in The Revival and further expounds Al-Ghazali’s reli-gious psychology and its theme of “science of the way of the hereafter.”60 InThe Revival, Al-Ghazali is concerned first and foremost with the “heart” andprovides the two meanings it holds in the Islamic tradition: the flesh, or physi-cal organ, in the body of man; and the subtle, tenuous substance, spiritual innature, that is the knowing and perceiving essence of man and the seat of hisintellectual and emotional life. The heart is distinguished from the spirit, soul,and intelligence, all of which also convey material and spiritual meanings, but itis in the heart that the knowledge of God is prepared. In The Marvels of theHeart, the twenty-first book of The Revival, Imam Al-Ghazali exhorts thatman’s capacity to know God is his final aim. It is this aim that separates manfrom the rest of creation, and it is the resulting knowledge that adorns him andgives him beauty and perfection with glory in the present world and provisionand store in the world to come.59

Al-Ghazali also portrays the heart as a king with two sets of armies, theinternal and external armies, that work together to help man survive both phys-ically and spiritually in the world. The external armies include man’s physicalmembers, such as his eyes, ears, and nose, which help move him towards hisgoals.60 The internal armies include man’s faculties such as anger and appe-tence that bring about actions that are profitable and suitable to the individualand ward off actions that are harmful and destructive. Al-Ghazali states that thefaculties of anger and appetence in the internal armies may, at times, disobeythe heart and trespass and revolt against it. This results in the destruction of theheart, cutting it off from its journey towards eternal happiness.61 The heart hasanother internal army, as well, that includes knowledge, wisdom, and reflec-tion.62 These faculties are the party of God, and they balance appetence andanger, which may join themselves to the party of Satan.63

Together, the faculties of the internal armies produce four qualities inman, demonic, beastly, brutish, and lordly.64 When the faculties of appetenceor anger are out of balance, the demonic, beastly, or brutish qualities will pre-vail, causing man to sin against the commands of God. When man is able, how-ever, through his intellect, to bring his appetites in order, he has the lordly qual-ity.65 These qualities influence the heart, which, according to Al-Ghazali, is likea mirror. The lordly influence brings about a clearness, shining, illumination,and brightness in the mirror of the heart so that the clear statement of God, the“Real,” reflects in it.66 This clarity and perspicacity of the heart, according toImam Al-Ghazali, is attained through knowledge of God and His remembrance(dhikr).67

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Beautiful character and inner peace are achieved when the rational, irasci-ble, and appetitive faculties, as well as the “faculty” that affects the just balancebetween the other three, are in balance.68 When equilibrium is reached withinthese four faculties, they produce in the individual the principal good traits ofcharacter that bring forth the cardinal virtues of wisdom, courage, temperance,and justice. The rational faculty achieves equilibrium through sound wisdom,while the irascible and appetitive faculties achieve it through submission to theintellect and the Law (Shariah). According to Al-Ghazali, the resulting goodtraits of character cut the soul off from the love of this world and cause one tohold firmly to the love of God, so much so that one would not love anythingmore than to meet one’s Creator.69

As Al-Ghazali explains, goodness of character may be achieved by divinegrace and through spiritual struggle and exercises. The secret to cleansing theheart of its covetousness is to resist desire. Al-Ghazali states that God hasdeclared, “God exalts those that have faith, and those that have knowledge tohigh ranks,” and he affirms that those who resist their desires on the path toGod have faith but those who grasp the cause and the secret of resisting theirdesires have true knowledge.70

In the twentieth book of The Revival, The Book of Breaking the TwoDesires, Imam Al-Ghazali focuses on the two desires that have the strongesthold for man: food and sex. He states that the greatest of mortal vices is thedesire of the stomach.71 The stomach, he argues, is the well-spring of desiresand the source of diseases and disorders, and from it follows the desire of sex,which then brings forth the desires for fame and wealth. These desires producein man competitions and jealousies and give rise to other vices, such as osten-tation, boasting, rivalry for wealth, arrogance, rancor, envy, enmity, and hate, allof which are the causes of societal iniquity, injustice, and corruption.72 ImamAl-Ghazali describes the story of Adam and Eve and their eating from the for-bidden tree as the first sin of man and its relation to the desire of fulfilling thestomach. This desire, he states, is powerful, and it is essential for man to con-trol it as it is the means for obedience to God.

The path to breaking these desires begins with hunger. Al-Ghazali quotesthe Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), who said, “The light of wisdomcomes from hunger, while remoteness from God comes from satiety, and prox-imity to Him comes from loving the poor and being close to them. Therefore,never eat to repletion, for you would thereby extinguish the light of wisdomwhich is in your hearts.”73 The purpose of the acts of worship, Al-Ghazaliexplains, is to exercise intellectual thought, which then leads one to gnosis andan inner perception of the realities of God. Satiety precludes this station, how-ever, while hunger opens it.74 He lists ten benefits that come from hunger,including purification of the heart, illumination of the natural disposition, andsharpening of one’s insight.75 Greed for things, which is produced by thedesires for food and sex, is the source of destruction, and all these gates can be

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closed by a parsimonious diet.76 As to the desire of sex, Imam Al-Ghazali rec-ommends marriage for those who can afford it since it does not prevent onefrom seeking the spiritual path and fasting for those who cannot.

The one rule that Imam Al-Ghazali prescribes regarding these desires isthat of equilibrium. He states that “whenever man’s nature demands that he goto an unsound extreme, the Law (Shariah) also goes to extremes in forbiddingthis.”77 What is required is the mean, as the Prophet Muhammad (peace beupon him) said, “The best of affairs is the middle course.”78 However, Al-Ghazali states that this rule is applied only after one’s nature is in equilibrium.In the beginning, if the soul inclines itself only to excess and is not able to curbits desires, then finding the mean will not be of any benefit. Therefore, the mas-ter may go to extremes to discipline his student so that his temperamentbecomes moderate and his desires are broken and he is able to revert to thestate of equilibrium.

The physical exercises for disciplining the soul prepare one for moralrefinement and the acquisition of virtues. Imam Al-Ghazali introduces his the-ory of virtue by first discussing the virtues of character, based on the Greek tra-ditions, and then reframing their nature within the moral teachings of Islam.The aim of the Greek virtues is to perfect one’s will and action in order to real-ize moral refinement, but Al-Ghazali sees this exercise as availing benefit onlywhen one is already inclined towards bodily health and the external goods nec-essary to aid in acquiring such virtues. In fact, he believes that virtues can onlybe acquired through “divine assistance.”79 For Imam Al-Ghazali, this divineassistance is a favor that brings the harmony of man’s will and action with God’sdecree and determination.80 This new framework for virtues engenders a spiri-tual means of moral refinement.81 Acquiring virtues through divine assistance is,in essence, opposite from the Greek tradition, since in Al-Ghazali’s view virtuescan only be sought in the bounty of God. Within this framework, divine sup-port for morality becomes crucial for the realization of the ultimate happiness.

Al-Ghazali’s understanding of these virtues, which he calls the “theologicalvirtues,” derives from his knowledge of Islamic theology and his own mysticalexperiences. Like the four cardinal virtues of wisdom, courage, temperance,and justice, which serve as the fountainhead of all other virtues, Al-Ghazali’scardinal virtues refer to divine guidance, which he calls “the gifts from God”(“fadl min Allah”)82 and lists as follows: God’s guidance (hidayat Allah), Hisdirection (rushd), His divine leading (tasdid), and His support (ta’yid).83 Divine“guidance” (hidayah) is a virtue that is a precondition for the attainment of allother virtues. He describes the virtue of divine guidance in three stages: the gen-eral guidance (hidayah al amah) given to all humans, mostly through reason butoccasionally by revelation; the guidance of the pious (taqwahum), God’s con-stant help in proportion to one’s progress in knowledge and performance ofgood deeds; and the absolute guidance that God illuminates upon the prophets

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and saints (walayah).84 The guidance of the saints provides one with knowledgethat cannot be known through reason. Al-Ghazali describes the guidance of thesaints in relation to his own experience with seeking of certainty. He states,“After having lost confidence in all necessary truths of the intellect, I regainedtrust in them once more, not on the basis of rational demonstrations, but by alight which God most High cast into my breast. That light is the key to thegreater part of knowledge.”85

The theological virtue of “direction” strengthens one’s desire for thatwhich is good and weakens one’s inclinations toward that which is harmful. Thenext virtue, “leading,” is a divine assistance that aids one to achieve one’s endin the shortest time. And the last theological virtue, “support,” is the sum ofthese virtues; it provides man internally with insight to conceive right actionsand externally by strengthening him with conditions to attain what is desiredwith the means that is most available.86

Imam Al-Ghazali believes that any virtue acquired by man’s own effort orfree will is an illusion. He believes that all things in this world, including manand his actions, are created, determined, and ordered by God’s will.87 In thisworld, it is impossible for man to have free choice and, consequently, for himto acquire virtue without divine assistance. The only way for man to know thereal things that call forth God’s assistance is through God’s revelation in theform of His commandments. As the theological virtues of divine assistance area divine gift and favor from God, there are certain actions that one can do tocall forth God’s blessings.88 These actions are revealed in God’s command-ments, and only by fulfilling these commandments can one be assured of theattainment of the virtues.

This next level of virtues consists of those obtained through fulfilling thereligious and legal commandments related to the acts of worship of God, andcustoms in relation to one’s fellow man. These “religious-legal” virtues, ImamAl-Ghazali states, must be observed in order for one to receive God’s favor.89

In books one through ten of The Revival, Imam Al-Ghazali introduces the reli-gious-legal virtues in relation to the ritual acts of worship and customs based onthe traditions of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). The ritual lawsfound in Islamic jurisprudence make the external aspects of the acts of worshipvalid.90 These laws provide the worshipper with rules, such as the direction toface when performing the ritual prayer and the times of day to offer the prayer.Islamic jurisprudence also discusses religiously prescribed and equally impor-tant moral imperatives related to social customs and manners. Such customsinclude religious manners in regard to food, marriage, business transactions,and permissible and forbidden things. Imam Al-Ghazali maintains that legalinjunctions of worship and customs need to be learned in order for one to exer-cise proper manners towards other members of society and to satisfy God’scommandments.91 The religious-legal virtues thus transform virtues into thecontext of religious morality and include such virtues as feeding others; extend-

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ing greetings; visiting the sick; honoring one’s neighbors; accepting and givinginvitations; making peace between people; showing liberality, magnificence,and kindness; repressing anger; and forgiving people.92

Al-Ghazali maintains that possession of the religious-legal virtues isrequired in order for man to receive the general guidance necessary for happi-ness in this world and the attainment of paradise in the hereafter.93 However,he argues that the virtues of this level of moral refinement do not, in and ofthemselves, lead directly to the ultimate happiness of the hereafter since theydo not include the virtues of the “inner dimensions” of worship and the divinecommandments. Knowledge of the inner meanings of the acts of worshipallows one to access a superior level of moral refinement. The mystical virtues,Imam Al-Ghazali states, are for those who seek an end that is neither knowl-edge nor paradise, but only the nearness to God.94 They are developed by prac-ticing the hidden interpretations, or inner meanings, of the divine command-ments, which, according to Imam Al-Ghazali, can only be mastered by mystics,not jurists, theologians, or philosophers.95

In his book Inner Dimensions of Islamic Worship, he discusses some ofthe inner meanings of the ritual acts of worship and how they bring about ahigher level of consciousness of one’s reality and purpose in the world. Hedescribes the devotional practice of prayer (salat) as the chief pillar of faith andthe criterion for distinguishing between unbelief and Islam. The inner qualitiesnecessary for perfecting one’s life in the prayer include awareness, understand-ing, reverence, awe, hope, and shame. For the act of alms-giving (zakat), theproper internal state is one’s realization that the beneficiary of the alms is actu-ally the real benefactor, as their acceptance allows one to purge oneself of greedand the desire for wealth. In his discussion of the ritual act of fasting (sawm),Al-Ghazali describes its three forms: ordinary, special, and extra special. Theordinary fast is that of abstaining from food, drink, and sexual acts during thefast, while the special and extra-special fasts are described as “fasting of theheart,” and include the manners of the prophets and saints, who abstain fromall worldly concerns and thoughts, in total disregard of everything but God.96

The final pillar of faith is the pilgrimage (hajj), or the journey to the house ofGod, and the performance of the ritual acts prescribed to it. Unlike the otherforms of worship, all of which have rational appeals and purposes, the sole pur-pose of performing the hajj is obedience. The performance of inexplicableduties, such as circumambulating the house of God, running to and fro, andthrowing pebbles, is a form of submission and the most effective means of puri-fying the soul since it redirects one from his natural inclinations and encouragesthe habit of servitude to God.97

The highest commandment, which all these pillars of faith provide sup-port, is the proclamation of faith (shahada): “There is no god but God, and theProphet Muhammad (peace be upon him) is His Messenger.” Though this isthe first commandment of worship and must be uttered to establish one’s faith,

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it is the basis for all worship and the sole intention for which the spiritual strug-gle is pursued. Imam Al-Ghazali also goes beyond these required pillars of wor-ship to recommend the practice of the night vigil, the invocation of the blessingof God on the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), and the seeking offorgiveness from God. He explains that these mandatory and supererogatoryacts of worship aid in removing the stains of sins from the heart and brightenits mirror so the light of God can shine from it.98

Imam Al-Ghazali’s profound contribution to the faith is in his develop-ment of an ethical framework of the mystical virtues based on the inner dimen-sions of the latter devotional practices. His mystical doctrine can be considerednot only an ethical theory but also a theory of virtue.99 In describing the mysti-cal virtues, he calls them “commendable character traits” or “qualities of salva-tion.”101 The Arabic term used to refer to the various mystical virtues is “states”or “stations” (maqamat) rather than “virtue” (fadilah).101 The mystical virtuesalso differ from traditional interpretations of certain vices. For example,philosophers regard death as the object of the greatest fear, so too do theyregard fear as a defect, with courage as its opposing virtue, while Al-Ghazalilooks at the same concept of fear in relation to God, who ought to be feared inthis life and the next, and concludes that the correct virtue for the defect of fearis “fear of God.”102

The objective of the mystical virtues is to help one purify the soul and freeit, as much as possible, from bodily desires, so that it may devote itself entirelyto the highest virtue of all, the love of God.103 The peak of moral refinement isin one’s ability to acquire the mystical virtues known as states (hal) and stations(maqam), where the states are transitory and the stations are permanent. Sufimasters, like Al-Saraj, author of a well-known Sufi manual on mystical knowl-edge, describes “states” as a psychological condition of the mind and “stations”as moral habits. However, Imam Al-Ghazali explains that the differencebetween states and stations is not in kind but in the degree that one can trans-form one’s habits. When a mystical virtue occurs only sporadically, it is a state,and when it becomes permanent and persists, it is a station.104 The mysticalvirtues also have an order of hierarchy that requires the attainment of one sta-tion before the next higher one. According to Imam Al-Ghazali, these stations,in order of attainment, are “Repentance, Patience, Gratitude, Hope, Fear,Poverty, Asceticism, Divine Unity, Trust, and the highest, which all these leadto, Love.”105

Al-Ghazali maintains that those who engage in moral refinement experi-ence human flourishing and contentment in this life as well. In his work, OnLove, Longing, and Contentment, book thirty-six of The Revival, Imam Al-Ghazali states that knowledge, which is perceived by one’s intellect but does notappear in the imagination, is the seed to spiritual opening and the divine lightof guidance, as experienced by God’s prophets and saints, and its veil is man’sappetite for the world. Those who have reached this state of gnosis, or knowl-

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edge of God, are described by Al-Ghazali as “always in a Paradise as wide asthe heaven and earth.”106

However, Al-Ghazali states that ultimate happiness can only be other-worldly and realized in the highest station of paradise. Happiness in the here-after is arranged according to man’s degree of achievement of moral refinementin the present world, and can be divided in two broad categories: paradise (thelower and more general station of heaven) and the vision of God (the higherand more prestigious station of heaven).107 Man must seek to attain this latteracquaintance with God, states Imam Al-Ghazali, because he shares the rest ofthe pleasures of paradise with the beasts of the field.108 The distinction betweenthose who reach the lower station and those who reach the higher station ofheaven is reflected in the difference between those who fulfill only the literaldivine commandments and those who reach the loftier level of moral refine-ment by observing the inner meanings of those commandments.109

The objective of both stations is the same: to obtain the love of God. Themost perfect attainment of this goal occurs when God’s servant is engulfed inHis love and this love is more dominant than the love of all other things.110

This level of love comes from one’s knowledge of God, and in one’s under-standing that God, who is the source of all creation, is the only One worthy oflove and any love other than for God, Most High, comes out of ignorance.111

Furthermore, one’s love thrives from knowing God, His attributes, His domin-ion, His kingdom, and the mysteries of His divinity; and it is this knowledge thatis the most pleasurable of all knowledge. Al-Ghazali states, “God-consciousnessis the door to remembrance of Him; remembrance is the door to mysticalunveilings; and mystical unveilings is the door to the greatest success which isthe success of meeting God, the Exalted.”112

The instruction for achieving love of God involves continually turningone’s face away from the world, cleansing the heart of its love of it, seeking gno-sis, and persistently occupying oneself with meditation and remembrance ofGod.113 Imam Al-Ghazali describes two methods for seeking this love: follow-ing the way of the Sufis, who are involved in the greater struggle of maintaininginternal purity through continual remembrance of God, and learning the wis-dom of gnosis. The latter method is for the select people who are able toachieve, with the assistance of a master, the Knowledge of God, HisHandiwork, His Majesty, His Essence, His Names, and His Attributes.According to Imam Al-Ghazali, these are the only two methods for seeking thelove of God; any other way is impossible.114

The spiritual struggle of the Sufis is the method of removing sin, which cor-rupts the heart, and purifying the heart so that God’s wisdom can penetrate it.This is the moment of “unveilings,” a powerful moment, as experienced byIvan Ilyich immediately before his death, when the nature of reality becomesinherently clear, the “imperceptible impulses” of good and evil in one’s con-sciousness are silenced, and one’s heart is in a state of perfect stillness and a wit-

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ness to the Ultimate Reality. Such a moment is described eloquently by therenowned Sufi saint Rabia of Basra in her poem “The Perfect Stillness”:

Love isthe perfect stillness

and the greatest excitement, and the most profound act,and the word almost as complete

as His name.115

Imam Al-Ghazali concludes his discussion of seeking the love of God bystating that those that do not love God do not know Him, and whoever deniesthis love also denies longing since there is no love without longing.116 Al-Ghazali is clear that this longing will be completely satisfied only in the here-after, when the lover is united with the Beloved, but the fruits of this love mustbe sowed in this world. Similarly, Saint Thomas Aquinas states that one’s desireand deep love for God is the key to one’s flourishing, and while this comesfrom one’s own action, the complete unlocking to this love is much more of adivine favor. The act of acquiring virtues leads to a temporal happiness, asagreed upon by both Saint Thomas and Imam Al-Ghazali, one’s natural humancapacities are not sufficient in themselves to attain complete happiness. Instead,it comes as a gift from God, as stated by Saint Thomas, through the infusedvirtues of faith, hope, and charity. Al-Ghazali’s explanation of inculcating mys-tical virtues bears a similar resemblance to the infused virtues described byAquinas. In his discussion of the mystical or inner meanings of the ritual act ofprayer, the virtue of faith is practiced, through fasting and almsgiving, the virtueof charity is achieved, and in the making of the pilgrimage, the virtue of hope isinstilled. It is through these virtues that one receives the gifts of spiritual joy andthe experience of a supernatural concord of one’s will in harmony with God.The perfection of the will and the divine favor of acquiring virtues are what bothof these great theological masters say lead one to the greatest happiness of thisworld and the next.

CONCLUSION

The ancients and great spiritual saints have always recognized the absolutegood and purity of divine order, and sought to harness this goodness by captur-ing its wisdom. With their powerful spiritual insight and keen observance ofhuman nature, they found through the harmony of theology and morality thepath to lead one to the ultimate happiness. Being on the path, as observed bySaint Thomas Aquinas and Imam Al-Ghazali, requires one to earnestly con-template and remember God, the source and beginning of all virtues. Therefore,we love, as God in His love showers us with a planet of palatable food, water,and means of shelter; we strive for peace and justice, as God in His infinite wis-

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dom creates men of all races and tongues and honors them with reason andunderstanding; we give thanks and show temperance, as God in His continuallove for his creation provides for everyday miracles and wonders in experienc-ing moments of great joy and hardship; and we are courageous in our strugglesto live, as God brings the dead earth back to life and revives our hearts with Hislight. When one becomes a witness of God’s love, His Remembrance becomesthe salvation to one’s life and the means of obtaining the ultimate happiness.

NOTES

1 Daniele McInerny, The Difficult Good (: Press, 2006), 62.2 Ibid.3 Ibid.4 Ellen T. Charry, God and the Art of Happiness (: William E. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2010), 87.5 Leonard Boyle, “The Setting of the Summa Theologiae of —Revisited,” in Ethics of Thomas Aquinas, ed.Stephen Pope (, : Press, 2002), 7.6 McInerny, The Difficult Good, 87.7 Ibid.8 Ibid., 59.9 Ibid.10 George Wieland, “Happiness,” in Ethics of Thomas Aquinas, ed. Stephen Pope (, : Press, 2002), 60.11 Ibid., 64.12 McInerny, The Difficult Good, 64.13 Ibid.14 Clifford Kossel, “Natural Law and Human Law,” in Ethics of Thomas Aquinas, ed. Stephen Pope (, : Press,2002), 172.15 McInerny, The Difficult Good, 64.16 Ibid.17 Ibid., 65.18 Ibid.19 Ibid.20 Wieland, “Happiness,” 62.21 David Gallagher, “The Will and Its Acts,” in Ethics of Thomas Aquinas, ed. Stephen Pope (, : Press, 2002),69.22 Stephen Pope, “Overview of the Ethics of Thomas Aquinas,” in Ethics of Thomas Aquinas, ed. Stephen Pope(Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2002), 32.23 Gallagher, “The Will and Its Acts,” 69.24 Pope, “Overview of the Ethics,” 32.25 McInerny, The Difficult Good, 74.26 Shawn Floyd, “Thomas Aquinas: Moral Philosophy,” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy,http://www.iep.utm.edu/aq-moral/.27 McInerny, The Difficult Good, 74.28 Floyd, “Thomas Aquinas: Moral Philosophy.”29 Ibid.30 Ibid.31 McInerny, The Difficult Good, 85.32 Ibid.,86.33 Ibid., 88.34 Ibid.35 Floyd, “Thomas Aquinas: Moral Philosophy.”36 Oesterle, Treatise on Happiness, 104.37 Ibid.38 Bonnie Kent, “Habits and Virtues,” in Ethics of Thomas Aquinas, ed. Stephen Pope (Washington, DC:Georgetown University Press, 2002), 122.39 Pope, “Overview of the Ethics,” 34.

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40 Charry, God and the Art of Happiness, 102.41 Thomas Aquinas, Treatise on Happiness, trans. John Oesterle (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame,1982), 51.42 Aquinas, Treatise on Happiness, 103.43 Wieland, “Happiness,” 63.44 Daniel Ladinsky, ed., Love Poems from God: Twelve Sacred Voices from the East and West (New York:Penguin Compass, 2002), 123.45 Wieland, “Happiness,” 63.46 Ibid.47 Ibid.48 Ladinsky, 122. 49 Nakamura, Kojiro “Al-Ghazali, Abu Hamid (1058-1111)” http://www.ghazali.org/articles/gz1.htm. 50 T.J. Winter, introduction to Al-Ghazali’s The Marvels of the Heart: Science of the Spirit, trans. Walter JamesSkellie (Louisville, KY: Fons Vitae, 2010), x.51 Ibid., xiii.52 Mohamed Sherif, “Ghazali’s Theory of Virtue,” in Studies in Islamic Philosophy and Science (New York: TheSociety for the Study of Islamic Philosophy and Science, 1975), 24.53 Winter, Marvels of the Heart, xiv.54 Ibid., xiv.55 Sherif, “Ghazali’s Theory of Virtue,” 6.56 Ibid.57 Ibid., 8.58 Ibid., 10.59 Winter, Marvels of the Heart, iii.60 Al-Ghazali’s The Marvels of the Heart: Science of the Spirit, trans. Walter James Skellie (Louisville, KY:Fons Vitae, 2010), 15.61 Ibid., 17.62 Ibid.63 Ibid.64 Ibid., 32.65 Ibid.66 Ibid.67 Ibid., 34.68 Ibid., 18-19.69 Ibid., 33.70 Ibid., 55.71 Al-Ghazali on Disciplining the Soul and on Breaking the Two Desires, trans. T.J. Winter (Cambridge: TheIslamic Texts Society, 2005), 106.72 Ibid., 107.73 Al-Ghazali on Disciplining the Soul, 118.74 Ibid., 119.75 Ibid., 118.76 Ibid., 129.77 Ibid., 154.78 Ibid., 156.79 Sherif, “Al-Ghazali’s Theory of Virtue,” 78.80 Ibid,79.81 Ibid.82 Ibid.83 Ibid, 80.84 Ibid, 81.85 Ibid, 82.86 Ibid, 83.87 Ibid, 85.88 Ibid.89 Ibid., 92.90 Ibid.91 Ibid., 93.92 Ibid., 96.93 Sherif, “Al-Ghazali’s Theory of Virtue,” 102.94 Ibid., 108.

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95 Ibid., 105.96 Ibid., 75.97 Ibid., 106.98 Ibid., 129-138.99 Ibid., 108.100 Ibid., 109.101 Ibid.102 Ibid., 111.103 Ibid.104 Ibid., 113.105 Ibid.106 Ibid.107 Ibid., 167.108 Ibid., 168.109 Ibid.110 Al-Ghazali On Love, Longing and Contentment, trans. Mohammad Nur Abdus Salam (Chicago: Great Booksof the Islamic World, Inc., 2002), 15.111 Ibid., 29.112 Ibid., 34.113 Ibid., 39.114 Ibid.115 Ladinsky, Love Poems from God, 5.116 Abdus Salam, Al-Ghazali On Love, Longing and Contentment, 39.

THE PEDAGOGICAL DIMENSION OF INTERFAITH LEARNING

David B. Burrell, C.S.C.

INTRODUCTION

These student essays emerge within a contested context, which they canalso hope to alleviate. In the last quarter century we have witnessed howunscrupulous political leaders have been all too able to find support for theirirredentist policies in religious identity markers, leaving in their wake a cryingneed to discover resources in those same religious bodies to reweave the tornfabric of their societies. These reflections will attempt to show how such soci-etal crises can be a blessed opportunity for the religious groups themselves: todiscover together their enhanced potential to foster reconciliation in society.Yet their initial step will have to be one of neutralizing the hostility to one anoth-er as “other,” a hostility often exacerbated, if not effectively created, by the sameirredentist political forces. One thinks especially of Bosnia-Herzegovina, whereMuslims, Orthodox, and Catholics worked side by side, and even intermar-ried., until Serbs and Croats trumpeted ethnicity to realize their ambitions. Orthe disaster in Rwanda, where tribal differences, long present, had been rela-tively fluid, again to the point of frequent intermarriage, until colonial mastersfound it useful to exploit them. The result was not only the brutalities that coun-try had to endure, but—to add insult to injury—a western insouciance fueled bythe stereotype of “African tribalism.” Like the Balkans, we could all too easilyview them as “barbaric,” so little aware we are that the barbarism had been trig-gered quite recently by forces closer to home.1 Given my recent context in theHoly Land, the religious groups shaping these reflections will be those also pre-sent in the Balkans: the Abrahamic faiths: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam,although other milieux could yield further examples.

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THE GOSPELS

Let us begin with the gospels. It was just after Jesus had (according toLuke’s account) “set his face towards Jerusalem” (9:51) that he excoriated thepeople amongst whom he had lived, announcing to “the seventy disciples:‘Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the deeds of powerdone in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented longago’” (10: 13). Moreover, he had just rebuked two of his closest disciples,James and John, when they asked him (in the spirit of Elijah): “Do you wantus to command fire to come down from heaven and consume [theseSamaritans who refused us hospitality], with the words: ‘You do not know whatmanner of spirit you are. The son of man came to save souls, not destroythem’” (9: 55).2 It is a prominent feature of the gospels that Jesus’ closest asso-ciates—whom he would remind, on the eve of their slinking away, were ratherfriends than servants—kept missing the point. Indeed, the rare ones who got itwere a Samaritan woman, a pagan woman from that very region of Tyre andSidon, and a Roman centurion: “I have not found faith like this in Israel” (Lk7:10). Ironically enough, remarks like these were often construed by the suc-cessor community to belittle the Jews for their rejection of Jesus, while theirmanifest intent has to be to warn any in-group that the out-group may be betterpositioned to recognize the disruptive truth in what they have come to assimi-late as their revelation. Had not Jesus, just before rebuking James and John,had to address some disciples intent on maintaining the boundaries of theirgroup—“Lord, some people were casting out demons in your name and we toldthem to stop,” insisting: “Let them alone; whoever is not against you is for you”(Luke 9:50)? Finally, if the gospels are more proclamation than they are histo-ry, “the Pharisees” refers less to an historical group then it presages any set ofreligious leaders intent on preserving the integrity of their community, as theyconstrue it.

So we are led inescapably to conclude that religious “others” will often pro-vide the key to understanding the reaches of the faith we espouse, and evenmore strongly: should we link our adherence to that faith with a concomitantrejection of these “others,” then we will have missed the point of the revelationoffered us. Can our failure to recognize the crucial role which “other-believers”play in our own faith commitment be one of those cases where a clear gospelteaching has remained obscure until events conspired to force us to acknowl-edge it?3 For we have freely traded the epithet of “infidel” with Muslims fromthe crusades until quite recently, leaving it to western political leaders to it res-urrect now. Yet the prescient document from the second Vatican council,Nostra Aetate, while reminding us that Jews remain God’s covenanted people,renounced centuries of mutual antagonism by asserting that Muslims “worshipGod, who is one, living and subsistent, merciful and almighty, the creator ofheaven and earth, who has also spoken to [human beings]. They strive to sub-

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mit themselves without reserve to the hidden decrees of God, just as Abrahamsubmitted himself to God’s plan, to whose faith Muslims eagerly link theirown.”4 Indeed, the contemporary fruit of that singular document may well liein bringing Christians to a keen appreciation of the role that those of otherfaiths can play in articulating our own, rather than offering counsel on the nuga-tory question of whether other-believers can be saved. For whatever “salvation”might mean—and its sense differs from one faith tradition to another—it is clear-ly God’s business and not ours.5

OTHER-BELIEVERS AND FAITH-TRADITIONS

But how can we effectively portray the role which other-believers play inhelping us to articulate our faith-traditions, and how can it contribute to sharedpeace building? I shall argue that these two questions lead to a single answer:only by recognizing the role which other-believers play in enhancing and con-firming our faith—whoever “we” might be—can we activate the powers latentwithin that faith for reconciling differences, precisely there where our standardresponses to difference have proved so deadly. That has, of course, been in thedomain of political life and interaction, where religious difference seems toexacerbate rather than temper animosity. But what makes us reduce religiousheritage to our possession? What Karl Barth liked to call the devolution of faithinto religion, I suggest, yet while he would have wished to restrict the term ‘faith’to Christian revelation, we are in a position to find similar correctives in eachof the Abrahamic faiths. Correctives, that is, to the propensity of staunch believ-ers to feel that they have grasped the import of their faith-tradition, and wouldcertainly need no help from others—especially “other-believers”—to enhancetheir grasp of their own faith.6 Indeed, the philosophical thrust of my responsewill remind us how faith cannot be something which we grasp, but which mustgrasp us; but let us first be instructed by the gospel.

Shortly after having reminded the disciples that they were ignorant of “whatmanner of spirit they were,” Luke tells us that Jesus “sent them on ahead of himin pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go,” admonish-ing them to “cure the sick who are there and say to them: ‘the kingdom of Godhas come near to you’” (10:9). Then when “the seventy disciples returned withjoy, saying ‘Lord, in your name even the demons submit to us!’,” Luke recountsa reflective turn on Jesus’ part: “At that hour Jesus rejoiced in the Holy Spiritand said: ‘I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hid-den these things from the wise and intelligent and have revealed them toinfants; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will’” (10: 21). Since we areclearly the “wise and intelligent,” I want to suggest that Jesus is identifying anepistemological failure we all share when it comes to appropriating a God-givenrevelation by faith. My guide to exposing this failure will be Aquinas, but mychosen commentator will be Oliver Sacks. What recommends the author of

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The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat for this task is not only his lumi-nous prose, but his reflections (introducing Part One) on “deficiencies,” acute-ly displayed in the way in which he practices neurology.7 Neurologists, hereminds us, are preoccupied with deficiencies, often those induced by injury ortrauma. Yet what came to fascinate Sacks were the ways those deficienciesopened his patients to modes of understanding unavailable to us who regardourselves as whole and complete. This practitioner of neurology recovered theart of medicine at the precise point where he came to recognize the limits of hisscience. Or put more positively, his intellectual acumen led him to a pointwhere he could identify yet other powers of a human person shining throughwhat were manifest deficiencies. And what should interest us is the way heallows himself to be carried beyond the limits of what he could claim to know,only to learn from these “deficient” persons something that they alone couldteach him. What can such a remarkable commentary on Jesus’ words of praiseto his Father tell us about the inner structure of faith and its endemic need for“others” to illuminate its import for us believers?

Aquinas’ response is simple and straightforward: in speaking of God (andthe “things of God”) we can at best but “signify imperfectly.”8 His generousaccount suggests the “glass half-empty, half-full” dilemma. Yet it means, ofcourse, that we will get it wrong much of the time, and especially so when wethink we have it right! So we will ever be in need of correction when attemptingto articulate the content of a purportedly divine revelation. That does not mili-tate against what Robert Sokolowski identifies as the central task of theology:“working out terminal distinctions” to secure the grammar proper to discourseabout God.9 But just as it took four centuries for the early church to explorethe import of those distinctions, the focus in our time must be on interfaithencounter. As Jean Daniélou noted fifty years ago, the prevailing story ofChristian missionary activity—bringing Christ, say, to India—obscured the effec-tive drama of mission practice. Indeed, it would be more accurate to say thatwe meet Christ there.10 The explanation is as simple as “reader-response” crit-icism: try to speak of Jesus to people formed as Hindus, and the questions theyraise will force us to a new perspective on the life and mission of Jesus. Whatensues is our discovering a fresh face of Jesus; or even better, another face ofGod reflected in Jesus. Indeed, such an encounter can open a new chapter intheology, as Sara Grant shows so eloquently in her Teape lectures.11

Constructing a conversation between Aquinas and Shankara, she demonstratesjust how unique the relation between creation and its creator must be. Once weattend to the import of Aquinas’ formula for creation as “the emanation ofbeing entire from the universal cause of all being” (ST 1.45.1), we find that wecannot speak of creator and creature as two separate things. What Sokolowskicalls “the distinction” of God from God’s creation is real enough, certainly, toblock any naïve pantheistic images; yet we can hardly speak of two separate

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things, since the very being of creatures is a “being-to” God (ST 1.45.4). So theterm adopted by Shankara and redolent of Hindu thought—“non-duality”—turns out to render the elusive creator/creature distinction better than anythingelse. But it took a person whose study of Shankara’s thought had been aug-mented by years of active participation in an ashram in Pune in India to bringto light the treasure latent in the Christian doctrine of creation.

Read in conjunction with Rudi teVelde’s Substantiality and Participation inAquinas, Sara Grant’s slim volume offers a contemporary perspective onAquinas’ recourse to this instrument of Neoplatonic thought to render coher-ent the radical introduction of a free creator into Hellenic metaphysics.12 Yethe only accomplished that in conjunction with Avicenna and MosesMaimonides: an Islamic philosopher who introduced a distinction which wouldprove key to Aquinas’ elaboration of the creator as “cause of being,” and aJewish thinker steeped in “the Islamicate.”13 So what many regard as the classi-cal Christian synthesis of philosophical theology, Aquinas’ Summa Theologiae,proves in retrospect to be an intercultural, interfaith achievement, constructive-ly elucidating that faith cannot be something which we grasp but which mustgrasp us, as well as displaying the role those of other faiths can play in articu-lating one’s own. Let us now consider the ways our present generation is calledto a fresh appreciation of the need to enrich our faith-perspective with that ofothers who believe quite differently than we do, as the only hope of reconcilingthose differences which a self-enclosed view of “religion” can so easily escalateinto deadly conflict.14 What sets the stage for conflict will turn out, in fact, to benotions of the divinity with idolatrous consequences, opposing one another liketribal gods, yet all the more deadly in that they presume to have total sway (orin the case of messianic Jewish groups like Gush Emunim, exclusive hegemo-ny) over a piece of land. This is hardly new, of course, since the Crusades mightbe considered a delayed western reaction to Islam’s spectacular spread within acentury of the death of the Prophet, while the later “mission civilizatrice” ofcolonialism represented a belated western recovery from the shock of Christianwithdrawal from the Holy Land following the demise of the Crusades, capital-izing upon the subsequent defeat of Ottoman Muslim forces at Vienna in 1529.Later Zionist recovery of that same land fulfills the pattern as well, even thoughits origins were expressly secular, utopian and socialist, the symbolic forces itunleashed easily transmuted into virulently religious forms of nationalism.

When religion can so easily mask and meretriciously legitimate forcesintent on dominating land, as well as natural resources crucial to the industrial-ized world, like oil, what hope have we of turning those same religious tradi-tions into forces for reconciliation? Very little, humanly speaking, and each ofthe Abrahamic faiths deploys its symbolic resources to help us understand thatfact. What Christians call “original sin,” Jews call yetzer ra [inclination to evil],and Muslims jahiliyya [state of ignorance]. In Islam, this description of Bedouintribes in the Hejaz before the revelation of the Qur’an “came down” to

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Muhammad became normative for all human beings bereft of revelation, wan-dering aimlessly in the desert as they follow the whims of their own waywarddesires. Indeed, that parable sounds familiar to Christians, with Paul’s reminderthat “the good that we would do we don’t do, and the evil that we would not dowe do do”; indeed, nothing can save us from this “body of death” but “the graceof God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 7:18), reminding us of Chesterton’squip that “original sin is the only part of Christian theology which can really beproved.”15 The inertial pull of yetzer ra in Jewish ethos can be detected in anyconversation among Jews, particularly ones intent on improving a current situ-ation, whatever it may be. Yet the contrary path of Torah observance stands, asMuslims have the living presence of God’s creating and healing Word in theQur’an, and Christians “the grace of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” So a grimdiagnosis of the human condition is matched by a strong antidote for its crip-pling effects. But how effective have these antidotes been, for as long as theyhave been present in the traditions taken separately? Francis of Assisi, whosevery life reminded his century of the efficacy of that “grace of God in ChristJesus,” was said to have been as impressed with the faith of the Muslims whomhe met at Damietta as he was depressed at the conduct of the crusading knightswith whom he had been transported there. Yet it may be that the opening pro-vided by Nostra Aetate, together with cultural changes in attitude catalyzed byincreased commingling of cultures, will bring people of faith into allianceswhich can foster mutual illumination and unveil other dimensions of thesefaith-traditions. Put more directly, we may now be given the opportunity toaccomplish together what each of us has failed to do separately.

A PROPOSAL FOR MOVING FORWARD

What I would like to suggest is that the presence of other-believers canhelp faithful in each tradition to gain insight into the distortions of that tradition:the ways it has compromised with seductions of state power, the ways in whichfixation on a particular other effectively skewed their understanding of the rev-elation given them. Minority voices within a tradition can often help make thatclear, as Mennonites trace compromising elements in western Christianity to anearly alliance with Constantine, while Sufi Muslims remind their Sunni andShi’a companions in faith of the crippling effects of a soul-less shari’a, harken-ing to the way religious and secular leaders colluded in Baghdad in 922 to dis-pose of Ibn Mansur al-Hallaj: “His hands and his feet were cut off, he washanged on the gallows, and then decapitated; his body was burned and its ashescast into the Tigris.”16 Indeed, the memory of his martyrdom continues tohaunt the Islamic world as a poignant reminder of God’s presence among us inholy men and women. In fact, this towering figure became the inner guide ofLouis Massignon, the French Islamicist whose life spanned the first two-thirds

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of the twentieth century, guiding his return to his Catholicism in a way whichallowed him to continue to be instructed by the vibrant faith of his Muslimfriends.17 His friendship with Paul VI also allowed his voice to resonate in theway that Nostra Aetate directed Catholics to a fresh appreciation of Islam.Indeed, each of the twentieth century figures who stand out as spiritual leadersin their respective traditions reflects a creative interaction with another faith-tra-dition, from Martin Buber and Franz Rosenzweig in Judaism, to LouisMassignon, Jules Monchanin and Bede Griffiths among Catholic Christians;and in Islam, the Pathan leader and man of God, Abdul Ghaffar Kahn, whoresponded to the inspiration of Gandhi to form a hundred thousand Pathannonviolent soldiers, to help bring independence to India. The fledgling state ofPakistan, led by mullahs and military men, could not countenance BadshahKahn, however, so imprisoned him and systematically suppressed his army ofKhudai Khidmatgars, yet a recent assessment of Pakistan by WilliamDalrymple notes how the movement has “made a dramatic comeback underthe leadership of Ghaffar Khan’s grandson, Asfandyar Wali Khan.”18 So evenwhen religious and political leaders unite to reject the challenge of voicesproposing renewal, those voices can also re-emerge.

Yet the fact that each of our religious traditions displays a shadow-side (toborrow an illuminating expression from Jung’s psychology) which can easily bemanipulated by those intent to harness it to the service of power, seems fatedto impede the self-corrective momentum of our traditions.19 These shadowsides have been reinforced whenever relations among the communities havebeen governed by polemics, notably the polemics of power. We have seen howcenturies of trading the epithet of “infidel” prevented both Christians andMuslims from thinking of one another as “people of faith,” while the genocideat Auschwitz culminated eighteen centuries of “teaching of contempt” (JulesIsaac) as ostensibly Christian societies kept Jews as the other in their midst,alternating between begrudging toleration and outright persecution.20 Can it beany wonder that Ashkenazi Jews’ relation to Christianity reflected a “know yourenemy” scenario? Sephardic Jews, ensconced in the Islamicate, developed avery different set of attitudes, for while they shared a recognized but subalter-nate (dhimmi) status with Christians, leaders like Moses Maimonides could alsoflourish in his role as court physician to Salah ad-Din, while continuing to servehis own community in countless ways. (Indeed, articulate Sephardim canbemoan the way Zionism was fostered in the polemical soil of AshkenaziJudaism, thereby shaping attitudes prevailing in the ensuing Israeli state.)21 Asrecent events have revealed a shadow-side of Islam, western societies havereacted so as to reveal their own, with predictable results. What is most signifi-cant about this phenomenon is the way it can turn religious traditions into col-lective idolatries, as they allow themselves to be so fixated on negative featuresof an opposing community as to block their access to the power to transformhatred and fear in the revelation given them. A contemporary Sufi writer has

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rendered the name ‘Islam’ as “reconciliation with God,” so highlighting that anytradition will need to become reconciled with its God concomitantly with rec-onciling to others, for the shadow side effectively obscures the revealing Godfrom the community called to receive revelation in fruitfulness.22 The dialecticof love and rejection dear to the Hebrew prophets works itself out in each ofthe Abrahamic faiths.

Yet the God shared by Jews, Christians and Muslims is the free creator of“heaven and earth,” whom the Qur’an describes so simply as “the One whosays ‘be’ and it is” (6:73). John Milbank remarks how startling is the biblicalaccount of the origins of the universe in an “original peaceful creation.” Yet healso reminds us how that text has become so “concealed ... beneath thepalimpsest of the negative distortion of dominium” that the church must con-tinually “seek to recover [it] through the superimposition of a third redemptivetemplate, which corrects these distortions by means of forgiveness and atone-ment.”23 For the “dominion” to which he alludes extends beyond nature toinclude other human beings as well, legitimizing force to subdue any recalci-trant group. Yet any effort to restore the original peace of creation, by Jews,Christians, or Muslims, will entail recovering the ways by which each traditionhas left room for our own desires to distort the community’s aspirations, so war-ranting the use of force ostensibly “in the way of God” yet along paths we out-line ourselves. And since each one of our Abrahamic communities has shownitself less than exemplary in that task, we may find our best resources lie inlearning from each other’s relative successes or failures.

What we dearly need at this point are ritual ways of expressing that “trian-gulation through friendship” which Louis Massignon enjoined and exhibited inhis life. Couples facing the prospect of interfaith marriages, who sense howfidelity to their respective faiths will prove crucial to their mutual fidelity over alifetime, have come up with exemplary exercises. Yet even in relationships offar less intimacy, and especially for those who are striving together towards ashared goal, joint ways of prayer will prove crucial. Ronald Wells tells a story ofa eucharistic service intended to reinforce faltering efforts to bridge the acri-monious religious divide long blocking peacemaking in northern Ireland: inthe face of ecclesiastical rules preventing full eucharistic participation to expresstheir shared hope for reconciliation, an older Catholic woman took the com-munion wafer in her own hands to her Protestant counterpart, offering half ofit to him with the words: “The body of Christ broken for us.”24 Let us attendto the total symbolism here, for if age bears the fruit of a wisdom born of suf-fering, her gender allowed her to bridge the ecclesiastical divide. Indeed,women may best serve to foster reconciliation between forces now dividing ourworld into Christian and Muslim, much as women’s groups helped to defusethe conflict between Christian societies in Ireland. Moreover, the need for rit-ual expression reminds us forcibly of Jesus’ distillation of the multiple com-mandments of the Torah to two: reconciliation with God will only be effected

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as we reconcile with one another, and how better express that intertwining thanin rituals?

In his Holy War, Holy Peace, Marc Gopin exploits his rabbinic back-ground and conflict resolution training to ask how religion can bring peace tothe Middle East. And his sensitivity to the deeply divisive human issuesinvolved culminates in the final section: specific steps toward a new relation-ship.25 These specific steps follow upon a recognition of the ways in which tra-ditional practices (sulh) adopted from Islamic and Christian Arab society, aswell as teshuva (repentance) from Jewish religious practice, can contribute toreconciliation by neutralizing abiding obstacles stemming from fear or frominsult to honor (183-94). So some of the steps he outlines come under therubric of “myth, ritual, and ceremony” (204-19). These embody the ritualremembering of events which once poisoned the atmosphere, yet doing so in acontext where ritual can bring a sense of participating in one another’s pain andso eliciting a shared hope. Already groups of bereaved parents are meetingtogether across the divide, teaching one another how much each set of parentsneeds the other to bridge the chasm caused by the violent death of their chil-dren. What is especially significant here is that the bereaved faces in “theParents’ Circle” are not at all like the stereotypes of those who pulled the trig-ger or carried the bomb. Rituals may be second-best to such face-to-facegroups, yet they carry a potency which can reach yet more widely.

Finally, there is mounting evidence that nothing short of the quality of for-giveness at once demanded and facilitated by the Abrahamic revelations will beable to empower people to continue in hope in the face of devastationendorsed by the shadow sides of those same religious faiths. For once religionhas been misused to reinforce chauvinistic aspirations, indeed to legitimizedemonization of others, appeals to fairness and human rights will hardly be ableto be heard. Nothing short of mutual acknowledgment of responsibility for theensuing human disaster will be able to clear the air to the point where the par-ties in conflict can envision one another sharing a common destiny. Only then,as Alan Torrance reminds us, will Jews, Christians, or Muslims each be freedto act towards the other from the unconditional acceptance rendered to eachby the free creator freely revealed in their respective scriptures.26 Indeed, shortof that, no fresh start will be given a chance, for each attempt will be measuredagainst the accumulated resistance and resentment engendered by protractedconflict. As South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission has exhibit-ed, and Terri Phelps’ literary analysis of the documents so poignantly delin-eates, only the truth, compassionately related and received, can liberate.27

CONCLUSION: THE EXAMPLE OF BISHOP PARIDE TABAN

A final example emphasizes the alternative politics of Christian communi-ty. Catholic Bishop Paride Taban grew up in southern Sudan and remained

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there through most of the half-century of warfare which ended with the granti-ng of regional autonomy to South Sudan in 2005.28 He founded Kuron Village(also known as Holy Trinity Peace Village) in 1997 around a contested bridgethat had served as a locus for cattle-raiding and intra-ethnic conflict. Located insoutheastern Sudan near the Ethiopian border, Kuron Village has grown toinclude over 80 families from eight different ethnic groups. Christians,Muslims, and adherents of traditional religion reside together in relative peace,and rival tribes often meet in the village to resolve disputes. Kuron Villageoffers a holistic model of Christian ministry with a full array of economic andsocial services. It includes homes, schools, dispensaries, wells, agriculturalfields, a hostel, reconciliation and retreat centers, and separate centers for adultand religious education.29 This reflects Taban’s three-step vision of reconcilia-tion. Peaceful coexistence first depends on food security, addressing the fun-damental question of “I am hungry” through improving farming methods.30

Second, the people must be educated, including adults who lost the opportu-nity for schooling during the long war years. The final step is the non-violentwitness of Kuron Village itself, creating an “oasis of peace” that demonstratesto surrounding villages that people can “live in harmony among themselvesdespite their diverse ethnic backgrounds.”31

Nor is Kuron Village a Christian ghetto, as it includes Muslim andTraditionalist families as well. Taban also invites non-residents from surround-ing villages to train in his demonstration farms. In this sense Kuron embodiesthe bridging dimension of reconciliation efforts—connecting regions, ethnicgroups, and religious communities through a new vision of community, trans-forming a symbol of conflict (i.e., the contested bridge) into one of hope. Thebridging motif embodied in Kuron’s vision and location extends to the inter-national partnerships that Taban has developed. From Caritas Switzerland tothe Norwegian government, transnational partners are invested in Holy TrinityPeace Village. It is distinctively local yet strikingly universal at the same time,“catholic” in genesis and practice. Similar institutions have emerged, in north-ern Uganda and in Rwanda, to exemplify the fertility of Jesus’ message at thegrassroots, and the strategic role which faith-based institutional; arrangementscan play in reconciliation, notably for a fresh formation of youth.

NOTES

1 See “Christianity, Tribalism, and the Rwandan Genocide: A Catholic Re-Assessment of Christian ‘SocialResponsibility’,” in A Future for Africa, ed. Emmanuel Katongole, (Scranton PA; Scranton University Press,2005), xx –xx.2 Words which “some ancient authorities add,” as the RSV notes.3 This is the burden of Karl Rahner’s celebrated “world-church” lecture, published in Theological Studies 40(1979) as “Towards a Fundamental Interpretation of Vatican II.” 4 Nostra Aetate, par 3.5 On this issue, see Augustine DiNoia, O.P., Diversity of Religions (Washington DC: Catholic University of

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America Press, 1992), Gavin Ducats, Theology and Religious Pluralism (New York: :Oxford, 1986), and PaulGriffiths, Problems of Religious Diversity (Malden MA / Oxford: Blackwell, 2001).6 What Paul Griffiths calls “the neuralgic point of creative conceptual growth for Christian thought” (Problems,97). Why else would it prove ‘neuralgic’ except for this propensity?7 Oliver Sacks, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1970), 1–5.8 Summa Theologiae 1.13.5, with an illuminating Appendix to the Blackfriars’ edition by Herbert McCabe on“imperfect signification” (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1965); see my “Maimonides, Aquinas and Ghastly onNaming God,” in The Return to Scripture in Judaism and Christianity, ed. Peter Ochs (New York, NY: PalestPress, 1993), 233–55.9 Robert Sokolowski, The God of Faith and Reason (Washington DC: Catholic University of America Press,1989); for an extended reflection on Wittgenstein’s aphorism, “theology as grammar,” see George Lindbeck,The Nature of Doctrine (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1984). 10 Jean Danielou, Salvation of the Nations, trans. Angeline Bouchard (Notre Dame IN: University of NotreDame Press, 1962). 11 Sara Grant, Towards an Alternative Theology: Confessions of a Nondualist Christian (Notre Dame IN:University of Notre Dame Press, 2002).12 Rudi teVelde, Substantiality and Participation in Aquinas ( Leiden: Brill, 1996).13 See my Knowing the Unknowable God (Notre Dame IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1986); the term‘Islamicate’ was coined by Marshall Hodgson to convey the extensive cultural milieu in Venture of Islam(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974). 14 For the response of 138 Muslim scholars to Pope Benedict and other Christian leaders in “A CommonWord between Us” (13 September 2007), see www.acomonword.com/15 Gilbert Keith Chesterton, Orthodoxy (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1996; original, 1908), excepting rad-ical Calvinist views which have given the doctrine an unacceptable name.16 Rabia Terri Harris, “Nonviolence in Islam: the Alternative Community Tradition,” in Daniel L. Smith-Christopher, ed., Subverting Hatred: the Challenge of Nonviolence in Religious Traditions (Maryknoll NY:Orbis Books, 1998), 95–114, at 101. See the four-volume study of Louis Massignon, The Passion of al-Hallaj,Mystic and Martyr of Islam, trans. Herbert Mason (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 1975), andHerbert Mason’s dramatic précis, The Death of al-Hallaj (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press,1979). 17 Mary Louise Gude, C.S.C., Louis Massignon: The Crucible of Compassion (Notre Dame IN: University ofNotre Dame Press, 1996).18 Rabia Terri Harris, “Nonviolence in Islam,” note 12, 103; see Eknath Easwaren, A Man to Match hisMountains: Badshah Khan, Nonviolent Soldier of Islam (Petaluma CA: Nilgiri Press, 1984) and WilliamDalrymple, “A New Deal in Pakistan,” New York Review of Books 55:1 (3 April 2008), 16.19 See my review of two studies by Avital Wohlman: “A Philosophical Foray into Difference and Dialogue:Avital Wohlman on Maimonides and Aquinas,” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 76 (2002):181–94.20 Jules Isaac, Has Anti-Semitism Roots in Christianity? (New York: National Conference of Christians andJews, 1961).21 See David Sasha in Sephardic Heritage Update (8 October 2002), available from slipstein@aol.com.22 For the relations among Revealer, revealing Word, and receiving community, see my suggestion of the triadicstructure of Abrahamic faiths in Freedom and Creation in Three Traditions (Notre Dame IN: University ofNotre Dame Press, 1993). 23 John Milbank, Theology and Social Theory: Beyond Secular Reason (Oxford: Blackwell, 1990), 317.24 Ronald Wells, “Northern Ireland: A Study of Friendship, Forgiveness and Reconciliation,” in The Politicsof Past Evil: Religion, Reconciliation, and the Dilemmas of Transitional Justice, ed. Daniel Philpott (NotreDame IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2006), XX –XX.25 Marc Gopin, Holy War, Holy Peace (New York: Oxford, 2002).26 Alan Torrance, NAME OF CHAPTER, in The Politics of Past Evil: Religion, Reconciliation, and theDilemmas of Transitional Justice, ed. Daniel Philpott (location: press), pp–pp, note 23.27 Terri Phelps, Shattered Voices (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004). 28 Information is drawn from the website for Taban’s Kuron/Holy Trinity Peace Village: http://www.kuronvil-lage.net/ (accessed 26 Jan. 2010). 29 An image on Kuron Village’s website (http://www.kuronvillage.net/dream.htm, accessed 26 Jan. 2010) cap-tures the multifaceted balancing act which is Kuron Village.Taban is shown scratching his beard and rubbinghis head as he “dreams” of all of the interlocking components of the peace village. 30 Cf. http://www.kuronvillage.net/exec_summary.htm (accessed 26 Jan. 2010). 31 These two paragraphs are taken from the conclusion of J. J. Carney’ perceptive “Roads to Reconciliation: An Emerging Paradigm of African Theology,” Modern Theology 26 (2010): 549-69.

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AwAkening 

Thomas P. Pickett

i. of wild dogs

The living wrap around themselves, their unborn changing     changing, seeking the womb on one side, on the other     wild dogs gorging. Then the dead rise; waiting images leap upon them. The children     who have called them, stand     hands outstretched. Men     who have sat naked in dust praying for death, rush toward and disappear into each other. Their’s is a whimpering     as if of wild dogs     dreaming.

ii. what the voice said

And what should you expect - to hear that voice     call that name, to kneel     without being afraid ? But there are those who count greatness, standing down supine forms in penance for meaning. You may hold your hand     your tongue, anything that when not used will not diminish you.

Some can kneel     without being afraid; some even kneel to pray. Let that fear     be your way; hear that voice     call that name.

iii. the reappearing            ...from morning last     to morning first

The trees reach up to cry the sky, their budding a never ending pretending, waving and weaving life, fanned by spirit wind, covering and uncovering the company of men, who, stalking the unseen foliage, disappear     reappearing, the cherubim attending, upon the doorstep of delight.

iV. Ye Saints                  ...and the angel’s calling  

The one who comes - returns; the accuser falls     streaming clouds of stars; earth opens to swallow; the women      they do follow; great the city     and its fall, and the angel’s calling; underneath     the doors and floors swing and slide; the graves     the sea - obey; the dead come forth.   

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CONTRIBUTORS

DAVID BURRELL, CSC, has been working since 1982 on comparative issuesin philosophical theology in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, evidenced inKnowing the Unknowable God: Ibn-Sina, Maimonides, Aquinas (1986),Freedom and Creation in Three Traditions, (1993), and two translations of al-Ghazali: Al-Ghazali on the Ninety-Nine Beautiful Names of God (1993) andAl-Ghazali on Faith in Divine Unity and Trust in Divine Providence (2001).More recent work explores strategies in philosophical theology, Faith andFreedom (2003); a theological commentary on the book of Job, DeconstructingTheodicy (2008), and an appreciation of the life and writings of John ZahmC.S.C.: When Faith and Reason Meet (Notre Dame IN: Sorin Books, 2009),Learning to Trust in Freedom: Signs from Jewish, Christian and MuslimTraditions (2010), and Blackwell: Towards a Jewish-Christian-MuslimTheology (2010). A visiting member of the Dominican Institute for OrientalStudies in Cairo as well as the Tantur Ecumenical Institute in Jerusalem, he iscurrently Professor of Comparative Theology at Tangaza College, and of phi-losophy at catholic University of Eastern Africa [CUEA], in Nairobi.

FARAH EL-SHARIF is from Amman, Jordan, where she earned anInternational Baccalaureate (IB) degree and then attended the AmericanUniversity in Cairo on full scholarship for her freshman year in college. Shethen transferred to Georgetown University in Washington DC, where she grad-uated from the School of Foreign Service with a degree in culture and politics.Upon her graduation, Farah was the Muslim Students Association president atGeorgetown, and the student speaker at the honors graduation ceremony. Sheis interested in contemporary issues in Islam and politics, specifically in issuesof nation-state formation, identity and reform. Her M.A. thesis at CIS is enti-tled “Representations of Sufism in American Religion and the Public Sphere”where she tackles the various ways in which Sufism has been favored—or disfa-vored—as a specific category for Muslims in America. After graduation, Farahplans on pursuing a doctorate degree in a similar field of study.

MARIANNE FARINA, CSC, is a Catholic religious of the Congregation of theSisters of the Holy Cross, Notre Dame, Indiana. She is an associate professorat the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology in Berkeley, California,a member of the Core Doctoral Faculty for the Graduate Theological Union,and faculty for the Center of Islamic studies. She received a Master of Arts inpastoral theology from Santa Clara University and a Ph.D. in theological ethicsfrom Boston College. With more than 30 years of experience in education andpastoral ministry, Sister Marianne has worked in education and social develop-ment projects that promote social justice and interfaith dialogue. Her researchinterests have focused on comparative theological ethics, especially the writingsof Thomas Aquinas and Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, and her work has been pub-lished in the Jaarboek Thomas Instituut Utrecht. Sister Marianne has traveledto Africa and Asia as a delegate and teacher covering topics such as religion anddemocracy, methods for cross-cultural understanding, interfaith dialogue, andhuman rights. Her areas of expertise include Catholic moral theology, philo-sophical ethics, Islamic philosophy, and Christian-Muslim dialogue.

JAMES PEPE is currently pursuing a Masters degree in both philosophy andtheology at the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology at the GraduateTheological Union in Berkeley, California. He graduated Cum Laude with aBachelors degree in the Integrated Liberal Arts, which is a Great BooksCurriculum, and a minor in philosophy from St. Mary’s College of California.He is currently writing his thesis on Thomistic angelology, specifically angelicepistemology and ethics in relation to Thomas’s account of the fall of Lucifer.He hopes to go on to teach philosophy and theology at the collegiate level,especially in a Great Books Curriculum.

THOMAS P. PICKETT, retired from the Georgia Probation Department,was the Coordinator of the GED Adult Literacy Program/Superior CourtJudges and also coordinated the Overcomers Substance Abuse Program. Hereceived his MFA from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Hispoetry has been published in a number of journals, including the SouthCarolina Review, Poem, Louisville Review, Vanderbilt Quarterly, VoicesInternational, Wind Literary Arts Quarterly, and the DeKalb Literary ArtsJournal. He received the Inspired II Creative Writing Award from theUniversity of North Carolina at Greensboro for “Wilder Places” and has givenperformance readings of Donald Davidson’s work, “Lee in the Mountains,”and his own work, “Pickett Remembers Pickett.” His other areas of interestinclude evangelism and theology.

R. RANIA SHAH is currently pursuing a Masters degree in Islamic Studieswith the Center of Islamic Studies at the Graduate Theology Union. She has aBachelors of Science degree from University of California, Davis in

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Environmental, Policy, Analysis, and Planning with a specialization in City andRegional Planning. Her career has transitioned from working as an urban plan-ner to teaching and to supporting non-profit organizations. In her role as officemanager, she worked with a core staff to help establish the first Muslim liberalarts college, Zaytuna College, in Berkeley, California. She has also studied withprominent Muslim scholars in America and internationally in the areas ofIslamic sciences and history. Having gained over ten years of work and researchexperience within the Muslim community, she hopes to utilize this knowledgein her pursue of a MA degree in Islamic Studies.

JAMES WHIPPLE received his BA in Near Eastern Languages andCivilizations from the University of Washington in 2008 and hisMasters in Islamic Studies from the Graduate Theological Union in2013. He has studied and conducted research in Egypt, Morocco,Yemen and Turkey. James is a published spoken-word artist stagename is Baraka Blue. In his work he combines music and poetic tal-ents to address the spiritual needs of our time. His research interestsinclude Sufism, multi-media, poetry and music. His master thesis wasentitled Reviving the Heart: the Heart, Knowledge, and SpiritualTransformation in Al-Ghazali’s Revival of the Religious Sciences. Hiscurrent research interests include mystical and theological themes ofSufi poetry, intersections and divergences between Sufism and modernPsychology, and emerging American-Muslim arts and culture.